SAGD Gas Lift Completions and Optimization: A Field Case Study at Surmount
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Gas lift completions for steam-assisted gravity-drainage (SAGD)(1) producers are unique. Conventional gas lift valves and mandrels with a packer completion cannot be used because of the extreme temperatures of the downhole environment. Most lift gas enters the production stream downhole through open-ended tubing or nozzles, which if not properly sized can result in operational issues such as fluid/gas slugging and pressure instabilities that negatively impact the overall lift efficiency. In 2006, ConocoPhillips conducted a study to design a gas lift system for the Surmont SAGD development that would allow better control of lift gas into the production string. In late 2007, the wells completed with gas lift were placed on production. This paper covers the data-collection effort and analysis completed to determine the efficiency of the two types of gas lift nozzles used in the completions, the methodology for optimization of SAGD gas-lift systems, and recommendations for future improvement. Background Surmont, an in-situ oil-sands project, is located approximately 60 km southeast of Fort McMurray in the Athabasca oil sands (Figure 1). This multiphase SAGD project is a 50:50 joint venture between ConocoPhillips Canada Ltd. (CPC) and Total E&P Canada Ltd., with CPC as the operator. The Surmont pilot began injection of steam in 1997. The pilot comprises three SAGD well pairs that use a variety of artificial-lift methods. These wells have been tested to determine the preferred method of artificial lift for the first commercial phase. Steam injection, for Phase 1A of the commercial development, was initiated in mid-2007. Conversion to full SAGD production followed in late 2007. Phase 1A comprises 20 well pairs in which all the producers have been completed to produce through gas lift for the initial life of the well. Phase 1 (A, B, and C) has a capacity of 3,975 m3/d (25,000 B/D) and is expected to reach peak production in 2012. A second phase is slated for commercial startup before the middle of the next decade. Upon completion and full ramp-up, it is estimated to bring peak production from both phases to 15,899 m3/d (100,000 B/D). Additional phases at Surmont are also under study.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
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.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
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".