SAGD in Reservoirs with Top and Bottom Water Zones
Abstract
Producing bitumen from non-ideal reservoirs is an important challenge for SAGD
operators. Thief-zone interactions and with steam chamber coalescence must be considered
for optimal process design. Here, a sensitivity analysis is conducted on a thin reservoir with
top and bottom aquifers to understand the impact on recovery process performance.
Solvent and non-condensable gas addition are considered to determine if they can improve
the performance of the recovery process. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is used to
determine alternative operating strategies using both solvent and NCG in recovery
processes that achieve reasonable economic and environmental outcomes. The results
illustrate that solvent and non-condensable gas co-injection in SAGD can be advantageous.
However, processes without solvent gave the best NPV due to the cost of the lost solvent
retained in the reservoir.
Description
Keywords
Engineering--Petroleum
Citation
Detpunyawat, P. (2017). SAGD in Reservoirs with Top and Bottom Water Zones (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27703