Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage: A Recipe for Success

Authors: Mohsen Ebrahimi

Abstract:

In this paper, Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) is introduced and its advantages over ordinary steam injection is demonstrated. A simple simulation model is built and three scenarios of natural production, ordinary steam injection, and SAGD are compared in terms of their cumulative oil production and cumulative oil steam ratio. The results show that SAGD can significantly enhance oil production in quite a short period of time. However, since the distance between injection and production wells is short, the oil to steam ratio decreases gradually through time.

Keywords: Thermal recovery, Steam injection, SAGD, Enhanced oil recovery

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1330187

References:

[1] Curtis et al, "Heavy-Oil Reservoirs", Oilfield Review, (Autumn 2002).
[2] Nehring, R., Hess R, Kamionski, M, "The Heavy Oil Resources of the United States", R-2946-DOE, (1983).
[3] http://www.seftonresources.com.
[4] Nasr, T.N., "Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD): A New Oil Producton Technology for Heavy Oil and Bitumens", CSEG RECORDER, (2003).
[5] Deutsch, C.V., McLennan, J.A., Guide to SAGD (Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage) ReservoirCharacterization Using Geostatistics , Centre for Computational Geostatistics (CCG) Guidebook Series, Vol. 3, page 2, (2005).
[6] Butler, R.M., "Thermal Recovery of Oil and Bitumen", Prentice Hal 529l, pp. 285-359, (1991).
[7] YadaliJamaloei, B., "Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage Process (SAGD), Opportunities and Challenges in Heavy Oil and Tar Sands", First Iranian petroleum engineering congress, (2006).
[8] Green D. W. and Willhite G. P., "Enhanced oil recovery", SPE, 1988.
[9] Aziz K. Ramesh A. B. and Woo P. T., "ourth SPE Comparative Solution Project:Comparison of Steam Injection Simulators", Journal of Petroleum Technology, December 1987.
[10] http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com