Kinetic Modeling of the In-Situ Combustion Process for Athabasca Oil Sands

Chen, Xiaolin; Chen, Zhangxin; Moore, Robert; Mehta, S.A.; Ursenbach, M.G.; Harding, Thomas G.

doi:10.2118/170150-ms

Cited by 17 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…7 Because asphaltene is the heaviest component in bitumen and it does not vaporize, the K values for Asphaltenes are adjusted to be zero. Relative permeability curves are the same as those presented by Chen et al 4 in which RTO experiments were performed with Athabasca oil sands. Long Lake oil sands used in this work belong to the Athabasca region.…”

Section: Energy and Fuelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reaction kinetics obtained from RTO tests can be directly incorporated into numerical simulation of in situ combustion processes. 4,28 In the RTO apparatus, two identical reactors are mounted in an aluminum heating block. One reactor, which acts as the active reactor, is packed with core containing reservoir oil.…”

Section: Rto Experiments and Numerical Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such a model can be readily incorporated into a commercial simulator. Chen et al 4 further extended the aforementioned LTO model to a complete reaction model with consideration of NTG and HTO reactions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Improved Kinetics Model for In Situ Combustion of Pre-Steamed Oil Sands

2017

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In situ combustion (ISC) has been recently evaluated as a follow-up process to steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) with the expectation to combine the advantages of SAGD and ISC. Before the design of such a hybrid process, it is important to understand the chemical reactions between air (or oxygen) and residual oil within a SAGD chamber in the presence of water and steam in order to simulate the process with a reasonable degree of confidence. In this study, an improved reaction kinetics scheme, in terms of Saturates, Aromatics, Resins, and Asphaltenes (SARA) fractions, is proposed to represent the complex chemical reactions during ramped temperature experiments. From the results of a set of laboratory ramped temperature oxidation (RTO) tests, the oxidation behavior at different temperatures has been carefully analyzed. On the basis of the analysis, a reaction kinetics model consisting of low temperature oxidation, thermal cracking, and high temperature oxidation reactions has been developed. This model has then been incorporated into CMG STARS to simulate RTO experiments. The experimental results of seven RTO tests, including temperature profiles, oxygen consumption, and carbon oxides production, have been successfully matched by tuning kinetic parameters. From the experimental and simulation study, it is found that the coke, which is formed through cracking reactions and traditionally considered to be the main source of fuel in ISC, reacts slowly at high temperatures in the RTO tests. The other source of fuel for combustion in the RTO tests is light hydrocarbons distilled from the original bitumen or cracked from oxidation and cracking reactions. These light hydrocarbons are responsible for the rapid high temperature behavior observed in the RTO tests. This work greatly increases the understanding of fuel sources, and the proposed model is able to predict oxidation/combustion behavior of pre-steamed Athabasca oil sands under a wide range of temperatures.

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Section: Energy and Fuelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Rto Experiments and Numerical Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Improved Kinetics Model for In Situ Combustion of Pre-Steamed Oil Sands

2017

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“…Por otra parte, los coeficientes estequiométricos de los esquemas de reacción son construidos a partir de múltiples balances de masa de los resultados obtenidos en pruebas de tubo de combustión, y validados con el ajuste numérico de los perfiles de temperatura y el historial de producción de gases. En general, se establece que al menos deben ocurrir dos reacciones, una en la que se deposite el combustible y otra en la que se queme (Chen et al, 2014).…”

Section: Modelo De Reacciones Arrheniusunclassified

Aplicación de una alternativa simplificada para modelar la cinética de un proceso de combustión in situ

Diaz¹,

Acevedo²,

Reyes³

et al. 2018

Rev. fuentes reventón enrg.

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La combustión in situ (CIS) es una técnica de recobro mejorado con un gran potencial de aplicación en yacimientos de crudos pesados y extrapesados; sin embargo, su implementación se ha visto limitada por el alto grado de incertidumbre asociado a su desarrollo a escala de campo. Teniendo en cuenta la alta complejidad del proceso con respecto a otras técnicas EOR/IOR, no basta con aplicar un screening binario y realizar pruebas básicas de laboratorio para determinar la factibilidad de aplicarla en un yacimiento determinado, sino que se requiere la realización de estudios adicionales, tales como pruebas de celda cinética, que están orientadas a determinar el comportamiento oxidativo del sistema roca-fluido en estudio, y a su vez, permiten la obtención de un modelo cinético que represente, mediante modelamiento numérico, el desempeño del proceso de CIS obtenido experimentalmente de pruebas de tubo de combustión. Con base en lo anterior, en el presente trabajo, se compararon los resultados obtenidos del ajuste de una prueba de tubo de combustión usando las metodologías Arrhenius y no Arrhenius, evidenciando diferencias significativas en el tiempo de cómputo y en los valores de saturación residual de aceite en el medio poroso después de aplicado el proceso CIS.

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“…Heat generated from the reactions raised the temperature of a reservoir adjusted to an oxidation zone, where the viscosity of heavy oil is reduced. Also, steam and gases produced by the reactions, besides the propagation of a combustion front, displaced oil near the oxidation zone toward a producing well ( [41,40,57,10]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New In-Situ Combustion Simulator for Parallel Computers

He,

Yang,

Liu

et al. 2018

Preprint

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As a competitive recovery method for heavy oil, In-Situ Combustion (ISC) shows its great potential accompanied by technological advances in recent years. Reservoir simulation will play an indispensable role in the prediction of the implementation of ISC projects. With the computational complexity, it is imperative to develop an effective and robust parallel in-situ combustion simulator. In this paper, a mathematical model for In Situ Combustion is proposed, which takes full consideration for related physical phenomena, including multi-dimensional multi-component three-phase flow, heat convection and conduction, chemical reactions, and mass transfer between phases. In the mathematical model, different governing equations and constraints are involved, forming a complicated PDE (partial differential equation) system. For physical and chemical behaviors, some special treatments for the ISC simulator are discussed and applied. Also, a modified PER (Pseudo-Equilibrium Ratio) method is proposed in the thesis. A fully implicit scheme is applied, and discretization is implemented with the FDM (Finite Difference Method). In solving nonlinear systems, the Newton Method is introduced, and both numerical and analytical Jacobian matrices are applied. Due to the complexity of an ISC problem, an appropriate decoupling method must be considered. Thus the Gauss-Jordan transformation is raised. Then, with certain preconditioners and iterative solvers, a numerical solution can be obtained. The results of different models are given, which are validated with the results from CMG STARS. Also, the scalability of parallelization is proved, indicating the excellent performance of parallel computing. This accurate, efficient, parallel ISC simulator applies to complex reservoir models.

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Kinetic Modeling of the In-Situ Combustion Process for Athabasca Oil Sands

Cited by 17 publications

References 34 publications

An Improved Kinetics Model for In Situ Combustion of Pre-Steamed Oil Sands

An Improved Kinetics Model for In Situ Combustion of Pre-Steamed Oil Sands

Aplicación de una alternativa simplificada para modelar la cinética de un proceso de combustión in situ

A New In-Situ Combustion Simulator for Parallel Computers

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