Experimental Studies Focused on the Pore-scale Aspects of Heavy Oil and Bitumen Recovery Using the Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) and Solvent-aided SAGD (SA-SAGD) Recovery Processes
Author | : Omidreza Mohammadzadeh Shanehsaz |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 327 |
Release | : 2012 |
ISBN-10 | : OCLC:827773067 |
ISBN-13 | : |
Rating | : 4/5 (67 Downloads) |
Download or read book Experimental Studies Focused on the Pore-scale Aspects of Heavy Oil and Bitumen Recovery Using the Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) and Solvent-aided SAGD (SA-SAGD) Recovery Processes written by Omidreza Mohammadzadeh Shanehsaz and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Increasing energy consumption and continuous depletion of hydrocarbon reservoirs will result in a conventional oil production peak in the near future. Thus, the gap between the global conventional oil supplies and the required amount of fossil fuel energy will grow. Extensive attempts were made during the last three decades to fill this gap, especially using innovative emerging heavy oil and bitumen production technologies. Most of these recovery methods have been developed in Canada, considering the fact that Canada and Venezuela have the largest deposits of heavy oil and bitumen throughout the world. The horizontal well drilling technology opened a new horizon for the recovery of heavy oil and bitumen. Most of the in-situ recovery techniques, including Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) recovery method, take advantage of horizontal injection and production wells. The vacated pores in the reservoir are filled mainly either with steam or with a mixture of steam and solvent vapour in the case of the SAGD and Solvent Aided SAGD (SA-SAGD) recovery methods, respectively. The use of long horizontal wells combined with the reduced viscosity of the produced oil allows economic production with limited amount of bypassed residual oil in the invaded region. The macro-scale success of the SAGD recovery technique is greatly affected by its pore-scale performance. It is beneficial to understand the pore-level physics of the SAGD process in order to develop mathematical models for simulating field-scale performance.