Design and real-time process optimisation of steam assisted gravity drainage for improved heavy oil recovery.

Bali, Amol Bhagwan

Abstract

Introduction to the Canadian Oil Sands, Canadas Oil Sand Industry: An Overview, Heavy Oil Technologies, and so many other topics about heavy oil have become the hotcakes in the oil industry. A number of new projects are in Execute phase for the development of heavy oil assets. This clearly shows the increasing demand for heavy oil. An oil industry is working hard to meet the world oil demand by developing deep water, HPHT, heavy oil, shale sands and all other non-conventional reservoirs but the main challenge is to develop and operate them in a risk free environment. Understanding the reservoir and fluid properties and developing new technologies help the industry to reduce the risk in developing non-conventional fields. A major problem in heavy oil field is to understand the behaviour of heavy oil. The viscous oil flows sluggishly in the formations and hence it is difficult to transport through unconsolidated formations and is very difficult to produce by conventional methods. Viscous oil recovery entails neatly designed enhanced oil recovery processes like Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage and the success of such technologies are critically dependent on accurate knowledge of reservoir, well and fluid properties of oil under variety of pressure and temperature conditions. This research project has provided some solutions to the challenges in heavy oil field development and can help the oil industry to optimise heavy oil production. Detailed experimental understanding of PVT properties has allowed this project to contribute to the knowledge. Reservoir, well and fluid properties were studied thoroughly and demonstrated the criticality of each parameter on the efficiency of Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage. An user friendly SAGD simulator is a big output of this research which allows the user to optimise the heavy oil recovery and enables to do risk assessments quickly during design phase of SAGD. A SAGD simulator is developed.

Citation

BALI, A.B. 2013. Design and real-time process optimisation of steam assisted gravity drainage for improved heavy oil recovery. Robert Gordon University, PhD thesis.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Jan 19, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 19, 2017
• Keywords: Heavy oil; Oil industry; Steam assisted gravity drainage; Viscous oil recovery; PVT properties; SAGD simulator
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/2107
• Contract Date: Jan 19, 2017
• Award Date: Jul 31, 2013