Shallow Sands of North Slope, Alaska and Their Hydrocarbon Potentials

Sharma, G. D.; Ogbe, D.O.; Kamath, V.A.; Zhang, M.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-0617-5_9

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Detailed description of reservoir and geological characteristics of the Ugnu tar sands is available in the literature 5,6 . The ugnu sands overlie the West Sak and the Kuparuk sands on the Alaskan North Slope, with the potentially steam developable section located on the northern part of the Kuparuk River Unit.…”

Section: The Ugnu Sandsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Simulation Study of Novel Thermal Recovery Methods in the Ugnu Tar Sand Reservoir, North Slope, Alaska

Sharma

Khataniar

Patil

et al. 2002

SPE Western Regional/Aapg Pacific Section Joint Meeting

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TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractThe Ugnu reservoir, located in the Kuparuk River Unit on the North Slope of Alaska, is estimated to contain over 6 billion barrels of heavy oil in the form of tar and bitumen. Due to the extreme oil viscosities conventional enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods are not readily applicable to the Ugnu sands. Additionally, high reservoir heterogeneity creates complications with EOR processes. A detailed simulation study was conducted to evaluate the performance of four novel thermal recovery methods in the Ugnu reservoir. These methods included steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) with horizontal injectors, SAGD with vertical injectors, SAGD with electrical preheating (EP-SAGD), and EP-SAGD with vertical injectors. A conventional steamflood was also simulated for comparison as the base case. The effects of various reservoir and process parameters such as well spacing, flood pattern, reservoir heterogeneity, and anisotropy on process performance were studied. The four SAGD based processes were found to be far superior to conventional steamflood, which performed very poorly. An optimum spacing between injector and producer for SAGD methods was determined. The EP-SAGD process was found to be thermally more efficient than SAGD, however, final oil recoveries were comparable for the two methods. Placement of horizontal producer was found to be more critical than placement of the injector.

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Section: The Ugnu Sandsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Simulation Study of Novel Thermal Recovery Methods in the Ugnu Tar Sand Reservoir, North Slope, Alaska

Sharma

Khataniar

Patil

et al. 2002

SPE Western Regional/Aapg Pacific Section Joint Meeting

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“…In order to start the calculation process a non-zero value for depth of heat penetration has to be assumed. These data along with oil viscosity data are taken from literature [8,9]. Relative penneability data are supplied by the field operators.…”

Section: (8)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thermal recovery process will be needed in this reservoir for the recovery of very high viscosity bitumen (50,000 to 10 million cp at reservoir conditions). The previous papers [8,9] which provide the detailed reservoir and geological description of the Ugnu resource show that the Ugnu sands are highly heterogeneous with large variations in porosity, permeability. water saturation and oil viscosity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulation Study of Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage Process in Ugnu Tar Sand Reservoir

Kamath¹,

Sinha²,

Hatzignatiou³

1993

Proceedings of SPE Western Regional Meeting

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A two-dimensional numerical model of the steamassisted gravity drainage process with a pair of horizontal wells (SAGD) is developed for heterogeneous, layered tar sand reservoirs. As a case study, this model is applied to Ugnu reservoir to study the effect of heterogeneity on the growth of steam chamber and the process performance.A detailed simulation study is conducted to determine the effect of various reservoir parameters such as porosity, permeability, initial mobile water saturation. Dykstra-Parson's permeability variation, reservoir anisotropy and shale barriers on the SAGD process performance in Ugnu reservoir. Also, the effect of process parameters such as steam injectivity, steam quality, steam temperature, horizontal well length, vertical and lateral well spacing is studied.

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“…It is estimated that about half of the total heavy oil deposits in the US cannot be recovered using the available technology. Much of this unrecoverable heavy oil either is in fields which lie at depths greater than 900m (3000 ft) or is too viscous for simple thermal recovery (Sharma et al, 1991).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Figure 2.1 shows the major oil fields located on the Alaska North Slope (ANS). It is estimated that over 6 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from the West Sak Field alone by using known and advanced recovery technologies such as steam injection through horizontal wells, enriched gas miscible, steam additives, and in-situ combustion (Sharma et al, 1991). The recovery of hydrocarbons from Ugnu sands probably will require more advanced and specialized recovery techniques (Sharma et al, 1991;Bross, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solvent-Based Enhanced Oil Recovery Processes to Develop West Sak Alaska North Slope Heavy Oil Resources

Ogbe¹,

Zhu²

2004

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A one-year research program is conducted to evaluate the feasibility of applying solventbased enhanced oil recovery processes to develop West Sak and Ugnu heavy oil resources found on the Alaska North Slope (ANS). The project objective is to conduct research to develop technology to produce and market the 300 -3000 cp oil in the West Sak and Ugnu sands.During the first phase of the research, background information was collected, and experimental and numerical studies of vapor extraction process (VAPEX) in West Sak and Ugnu are conducted. The experimental study is designed to foster understanding of the processes governing vapor chamber formation and growth, and to optimize oil recovery. A specially designed core-holder and a computed tomography (CT) scanner was used to measure the in-situ distribution of phases.Numerical simulation study of VAPEX was initiated during the first year. The numerical work completed during this period includes setting up a numerical model and using the analog data to simulate lab experiments of the VAPEX process. The goal was to understand the mechanisms governing the VAPEX process. Additional work is recommended to expand the VAPEX numerical study using actual field data obtained from Alaska North Slope.

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Shallow Sands of North Slope, Alaska and Their Hydrocarbon Potentials

Cited by 4 publications

References 1 publication

A Simulation Study of Novel Thermal Recovery Methods in the Ugnu Tar Sand Reservoir, North Slope, Alaska

A Simulation Study of Novel Thermal Recovery Methods in the Ugnu Tar Sand Reservoir, North Slope, Alaska

Simulation Study of Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage Process in Ugnu Tar Sand Reservoir

Solvent-Based Enhanced Oil Recovery Processes to Develop West Sak Alaska North Slope Heavy Oil Resources

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