Reservoir Simulation of Cyclic Steam Stimulation in the Cold Lake Oil Sands

Beattie, C.I.; Boberg, T.C.; Mcnab, G. S.

doi:10.2118/18752-ms

Cited by 22 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The gradual reduction of phase viscosity from the oil to steam improves the sweep efficiency significantly. However, the oil droplets in O-W emulsion can plug rock pores and increase the resistance to water phase flow in water channels or finger and divert the injected water to upswept regions (Bryan and Kantzas, 2007;Liu et al, 2007;Dong et al, 2009). In this study we only consider the oil in water emulsion.…”

Section: Emulsificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The main mechanism for recovery is to lower oil-water interfacial tension in conventional oil reservoirs to lower the capillary forces and the concept of capillary desaturation, but in heavy oil emulsification is the main mechanism. However, the formations of water in oil (W-O) emulsion phase and oil in water (O-W) emulsion phase have been reported as possible recovery mechanisms for heavy oils during surfactant flooding (Bryan and Kantzas, 2007;Liu et al, 2007;Dong et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Steam-Surfactant-Foam Modeling in Heavy Oil Reservoirs

Lashgari

Lotfollahi

Delshad

et al. 2014

Day 3 Thu, June 12, 2014

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Steam foam is a hybrid and novel method of the thermal and chemical flooding to improve the sweep efficiency of steam for producing heavy crude oils. Steam injection is a mature process to substantially reduce the oil viscosity in heavy oil reservoirs to increase its mobility. Steam flooding is an unstable displacement since the gravity of steam causes poor vertical sweep efficiency due to the gravity override in thick high permeability pay zones and poor areal sweep efficiency in high permeability channels with high connectivity. On the other hand foam reduces the mobility of steam by stabilizing the liquid lamellae that cause some or all of the steam to exist as a discontinuous phase. Therefore, foam plugs large pores to divert the flow into the low permeability zones and controls gravity override. Foam increases the pressure gradient slightly in the steam swept regions and leads to heating oil more efficiently when steam diverts into the cold unswept regions. Furthermore, surfactant mobilizes the high viscous oil by emulsification and reduction of interfacial tension. The synergy of steam, surfactant, and foam has the potential to greatly improve the recovery of heavy oil reservoirs.Based on a literature survey, steam foam injection has been conducted in both laboratory corefloods and few field pilots. On the other hand, existing numerical simulators have not been able to capture the mechanisms involved in such a process. In this paper, we present the development and implementation of a new robust steam formulation in a four phase chemical flooding reservoir simulator (UTCHEM) to model and understand the contribution of each mechanism such as viscosity reduction, emulsification, and foam for mobility control. Results illustrate that the steam foam process controls the mobility of steam to avoid incomplete vertical sweep due to gravity segregation. Formation of the emulsion phase by condensing steam along with the presence of water leads to an increase in the emulsion viscosity and thereby decreases water production. The presence of surfactant and emulsification of oil either as water in oil or oil in water emulsions can also impact the displacement and propagation of viscous oil.The mechanistic understanding of steam foam process and improvement of the heat transfer compared to conventional steam flooding is a key finding in this research to optimize the technology that unlocks heavy oil reservoirs with favorable economics.

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Section: Emulsificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Steam-Surfactant-Foam Modeling in Heavy Oil Reservoirs

Lashgari

Lotfollahi

Delshad

et al. 2014

Day 3 Thu, June 12, 2014

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“…The permeability appearing in Eqs. 1 and 2 can be computed directly through a relationship with reservoir porosity (Beattie et al 1991) or with volumetric strain (Li and Chalaturnyk 2006).…”

Section: Basic Equationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improved Gridding Technique for Coupling Geomechanics to Reservoir Flow

Tran¹,

Buchanan²,

Nghiem³

2009

SPE Journal

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Summary The application of geomechanics in reservoir flow simulation has increased substantially since it was recognized that the modeling of geomechanical effects was necessary to predict important phenomena such as compaction, subsidence, wellbore failure. However, its application is strongly limited because of the use of a single-grid system for both reservoir flow and geomechanics deformation. In the case of a large field-scale simulation, the use of a single-grid system gives rise to an extremely large number of gridblocks. On one hand, for an accurate modeling of fluid flow, the gridblocks need to be reasonably small around wells and sharp fronts. Yet, these small gridblocks may not be essential for geomechanics computations. On the other hand, accurate geomechanics calculations may require many gridblocks in the overburden, underburden, and sideburden (country rock) that are not necessary for fluid flow. In this work, a dual-grid technique is combined with an iterative coupling method to resolve the problem. In this dual-grid technique, the reservoir flow grid and the geomechanics grid are distinct in order to model efficiently both fluid flow phenomena and geomechanics deformations. A method to couple the two grid systems is described. The use of this grid coupling approach reduces the simulation run time substantially with results that are very close to the single-grid method. A series of examples illustrating the application of this dual-grid concept and the corresponding runtime reduction are described.

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“…For any reversal from (i) to (dd) within tbe loop, anotber curve will be scaled from tbe actual reversal point back to tbe initial point on the (d) curve. For reversals from a (dd) process to an (i) process, Pc follows a scaled (i) curve to the actual Snwy.Tbe treatment of Pc for both possible reversals within a bysteresis loop is outlined in Fig.1 [2], a revers al in saturation change occurs, and a scaled (i) curve is followed towards the actual residual nw phase saturation. Before the nw phase is trapped, another reversal to a (dd) process occurs [3] and a scaled curve from the actual reversal point to the original deviation point on the (d) curve will be followed.…”

Section: 1)mentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Model for History Dependent Saturation Functions in Reservoir Simulation

Kriebernegg¹,

Heinemann²

1996

ECMOR v - 5th European Conference on the Mathematics of Oil Recovery

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A new model for treating dynamie hysteresis in saturation functions for two and three phase reservoir simulation studies has been developed. It is incorporated in a three dimensional, three phase, fully implicite reservoir simulator. It has been experimentally observed that capiIIary pressure and relative permeabilities do not only depend on the saturation change itself, they depend on the direction of saturation change, too, which is called as 'hysteresis' . In simulations with changing displacement directions, accounting for hysteresis in saturation functions leads to more realistic predictions of reservoir behavior. In this model, dynamic values of saturation functions are determined by remembering the history in saturation. Normalized experimentaI functions are used to prediet the virtual values of saturation functions at any saturation value for given displacement conditions. The influence of the maximum historical non-wetting phase saturation on the residual one is accounted for. The basic principles of the model are derived from experimentaI observations. The model allows to select those 'level of hysteresis' which is in accordance with the expected displacement mechanisms. Saturation functions of rock regions can be defined by entering the endpoints of curves only and 'sealing' the function of another rock reg ion with known function shape between the endpoints , too. The hysteresis model was validated by parametrie studies of several hypothetical systems representing typical displacement mechanisms in reservoirs.

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Reservoir Simulation of Cyclic Steam Stimulation in the Cold Lake Oil Sands

Cited by 22 publications

References 17 publications

Steam-Surfactant-Foam Modeling in Heavy Oil Reservoirs

Steam-Surfactant-Foam Modeling in Heavy Oil Reservoirs

Improved Gridding Technique for Coupling Geomechanics to Reservoir Flow

A New Model for History Dependent Saturation Functions in Reservoir Simulation

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