Pore-Level Investigation of Heavy Oil and Bitumen Recovery Using Solvent −Aided Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SA-SAGD) Process
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Attempts have been made to reduce the energy requirements of steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) projects through coupled thermal and solvent processes (i.e., hybrid SAGD). The augmented process brings superior features to the SAGD process in terms of reduced energy requirement, enhanced produced oil quality, and also improved oil recoveries. The pore-level recovery mechanisms of the hybrid SAGD process have not been investigated yet. The main objective of this paper is to visually investigate and to document the pore-scale events during the hybrid SAGD process using glass micromodel type of porous media. Different additives ( n -pentane and n -hexane) were added to steam prior to injecting into the models. Experiments were conducted in an inverted-bell vacuum chamber to reduce the excessive heat loss to the surroundings. The results indicate that the gravity drainage process takes place through a layer of pores composed of 1−5 pores in thickness, in the direction perpendicular to the nominal oil−gaseous mixture interface, in the mobilized region. The interplay between gravity and capillary forces results in the drainage of the mobilized oil. The visualization results demonstrated the coexistence of water-in-oil and solvent-in-water emulsification at the interface because of the local condensation of both steam and the vaporized solvent. The extent of emulsification depends directly on the temperature gradient between the gaseous mixture and the mobile oil phase. Asphaltene precipitation was also observed when the condensed solvent reached the bitumen interface. As the nature of the process involves partially miscible displacements, the extent of film-flow drainage of the mobilized oil was also significant. Other pore-scale phenomena include localized entrapment of steam and vaporized solvent followed by condensation, snap-off of liquid films, steam and solvent vapor condensation at the interface because of the temperature gradient and capillary instabilities.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot 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.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 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) | 0.001 | 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 source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), 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".