Understanding the mobilised oil drainage dynamics inside laboratory-scale and field-scale reservoirs for more accurate THAI process design and operation procedures
Notice bibliographique
Résumé
Abstract The technical and economic validities of the toe-to-heel air injection (THAI) process for heavy oils upgrading and production are yet to be fully realised even though it has been operated at laboratory, pilot, and semi-commercial levels. The findings from Canadian Kerrobert THAI project suggested that there is no proportionality between oil production and air injection rates. However, this conclusion was reached without having to dig deeper into the dynamics of the transport processes inside the reservoir especially that efficient combustion was clearly taking place as the mol% oxygen in the produced gas was negligible. As a result, this study is conducted with aims of identifying the similarities and differences of the dynamics of the transport processes in lab-scale and field-scale reservoirs. For the first time, this study has found oil drainage dynamics inside the reservoir to be both scale-dependent and operation-dependent. For the laboratory-scale numerical model E, what is clearest is that all of the head of the oil flux vectors are either totally vertically directed or slightly inclined and pointing upward towards the heel. None of them is pointing backward towards the toe of the HP well. Thus, it is apparent that oil drainage pattern in this laboratory-scale model E is efficient as all the mobilised upgraded oil, including from the base of the combustion cell, is produced as the combustion front advances in the toe-to-heel manner. However, the combustion front has a backward-leaning shape which is an indicator that it is propagating even inside the HP well. This implies that the process is operating in an unstable, inefficient, and unsafe mode. These two opposing patterns at laboratory-scale must be resolved to ensure healthy combustion front propagation with efficient oil drainage and production rates are achieved. At the field scale (i.e. model F), this study has shown for the first time that there are actually two mobile oil zones: the one ahead of the combustion front with lower oil flux magnitude (i.e. MOZ) and the one containing large pool of mobilised partially upgraded oil at the base of the reservoir just behind the toe of the HP well. The above findings in model F show that there is conflicting dynamics about the goal of achieving large oil production rates downstream of the combustion front with the propagation of forward-tilting stable, safe, and efficient combustion front. If the combustion is to be optimally sustained, then most of the mobilised upgraded oil might be lost going in the wrong direction towards the region behind the toe of the HP well. In actual reservoir in the field, shale with very low permeability and porosity must be present behind the toe in order for the large pool of mobilised upgraded oil that is continuously draining from the vertical adjacent planes to be forced into the toe of the HP well. As a result, to balance these two conflicting dynamics of upward-tilted combustion front going longitudinally towards the heel of the HP well and the mobilised oil draining down at an angle towards the region behind the toe of the HP well, future studies are essentially required. These are proposed and also listed under the conclusion section in order to ensure thorough design and operation procedures for the THAI process are established.
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Comment cette classification a été obtenuedéplier
Prédiction machine sur la base complète
Imitation des enseignantsNi prévalence calibrée, ni vérité terrain. Validation humaine à venir. Le volet Gemma est une étiquette directe du modèle pour chaque travail de la base, lue sur la notice réduite au titre. Le volet Codex est un classifieur appris des 10 348 étiquettes directes de Codex et calibré sur les taux pondérés de l'échantillon; les champs sans appui suffisant ne portent aucun appel Codex. Le mode candidate est l'union des deux volets; le consensus est leur intersection. Ces sorties portent le statut machine_predicted_unvalidated et ne sont pas des étiquettes humaines.
Scores du classifieur distillé par catégorie (deux têtes)
| Catégorie | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Métarecherche | 0,000 | 0,001 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens strict) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens large) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Bibliométrie | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Études des sciences et des technologies | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Communication savante | 0,001 | 0,001 |
| Science ouverte | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Intégrité de la recherche | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Charge utile insuffisante (le modèle a refusé de juger) | 0,001 | 0,000 |
Scores machine (provisoires)
Les deux têtes enseignantes du modèle étudiant, lues sur ce travail. Un score ordonne la base pour la relecture; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie, et le statut de validation accompagne chaque rangée tel quel.
Scores de référence d'un modèle non mature (critères de maturité non atteints, 7 itérations). Un score ordonne; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · tel quel depuis la passe de notation : score_only signifie que le nombre peut ordonner les travaux, et qu'aucune étiquette de catégorie n'en découleClassification
machine, non validéePrédiction automatique; un appel candidat d’une seule source (Gemma direct ou Codex distillé), pas un consensus.
Le détail, modèle par modèle et score par score, se trouve en fin de page sous « Comment cette classification a été obtenue ».