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Record W2032100850 · doi:10.2118/09-09-41

The Impact of Pressure Drop on SAGD Process Performance

2009· article· en· W2032100850 on OpenAlexaffabout
T. Thorne, Lulu Zhao

Bibliographic record

VenueJournal of Canadian Petroleum Technology · 2009
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldEngineering
TopicEnhanced Oil Recovery Techniques
Canadian institutionsPetro-Canada
Fundersnot available
KeywordsInjectorPetroleum engineeringSteam injectionPressure dropSteam-assisted gravity drainageDrop (telecommunication)Oil sandsThermalSteam pressureProduction rateEnvironmental scienceAsphaltWaste managementMechanicsGeologyMaterials scienceEngineeringProcess engineeringBoiler (water heating)Mechanical engineeringMeteorologyComposite material

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Abstract Pressure drop along the horizontal wells and between the injector and producer could have a significant impact on SAGD process performance. However, this issue is poorly understood due to difficulties in simulating pressure drop. This paper presents the results of a numerical study on the topic. When pressure drop between the injector and producer exists, the downhole vapour production rate must be increased significantly. Without adequate vapour production, the oil production rate is lower and SOR is higher. Increasing the vapour production rate may affect pad facility design as more vapour handling capacity is required under these conditions. On the other hand, pressure drop inside the injection well may also alter steam distribution. However, the impact on oil production is limited as steam can move relatively easily inside the steam chamber. In the present case, oil production is reduced by approximately 5% when a pressure gradient along the injection well is considered. Introduction Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD), a thermal process that involves the application of steam and the use of horizontal wells, is a bitumen recovery method used in the Athabasca Oil Sands. The most common implementation involves the use of two horizontal wells drilled parallel to one another with a vertical separation distance of about 5 m. The upper well is known as the injector and the lower well is known as the producer. Through the operation of commercial projects, it has been observed that once steam is injected into the reservoir, a pressure gradient is observed along and between the wells. There have been a number of publications addressing this issue(1, 2). As the SAGD process has been applied to more locations in recent years, considerable interest has been generated around the topic of pressure drop and its effect on SAGD process performance. It is generally understood that a pressure drop across or along the wellbore could result in wells with a non-uniform steam chamber, a reduced effective wellbore length, liquid build-up above the production well or reduced oil production rate.* When a new reservoir is developed, a great effort is required to understand the reservoir characteristics and how to incorporate them into production forecasting models. Petro-Canada is currently expanding their MacKay River project and, in order to develop a better understanding between pressure drop and oil productivity, the field data from their existing project was analyzed so that recommendations could be made to increase the project's productivity. One factor that needs to be addressed for drilling and completion planning is the wellbore size. Larger wellbore size results in more uniform steam distribution in the injection well and increased productivity from the production well. However, a larger wellbore size incurs a higher cost. In some existing wells, it was found that liquid build-up was occurring due to limited lifting capacity. In addition, a larger pressure drop between the injector and the producer has been observed.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.001
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.002
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Bench or experimental · Consensus signal: Bench or experimental
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.003
Threshold uncertainty score0.012

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0010.002
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.000
Bibliometrics0.0010.001
Science and technology studies0.0000.000
Scholarly communication0.0010.001
Open science0.0010.001
Research integrity0.0010.001
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0030.001

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.004
GPT teacher head0.224
Teacher spread0.221 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designBench or experimental
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations6
Published2009
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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