Identifying Reservoir Features via iSOR Response Behaviour

Jingyi Wang and Ian Gates
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Jingyi Wang: Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Ian Gates: Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 2, 1-15

Abstract: To extract viscous bitumen from oil sands reservoirs, steam is injected into the formation to lower the bitumen’s viscosity enabling sufficient mobility for its production to the surface. Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is the preferred process for Athabasca oil sands reservoirs but its performance suffers in heterogeneous reservoirs leading to an elevated steam-to-oil ratio (SOR) above that which would be observed in a clean oil sands reservoir. This implies that the SOR could be used as a signature to understand the nature of heterogeneities or other features in reservoirs. In the research reported here, the use of the SOR as a signal to provide information on the heterogeneity of the reservoir is explored. The analysis conducted on prototypical reservoirs reveals that the instantaneous SOR (iSOR) can be used to identify reservoir features. The results show that the iSOR profile exhibits specific signatures that can be used to identify when the steam chamber reaches the top of the formation, a lean zone, a top gas zone, and shale layers.

Keywords: steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD); steam-to-oil ratio (SOR); process performance; thermal efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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