Geo-Mechanics of a Sugar-Cube Box: Cyclic Injection and Production in a Fractured Carbonate at the Saleski Pilot
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Since 2012, horizontal wells at the Saleski pilot are operated with cyclic steam injection and production, recovering bitumen from the naturally fractured Grosmont carbonate reservoir. Steam has been injected in a continuous matter similar to SAGD, as well as in cyclic alteration with production from individual wells. Injection pressure is 50-60% of the overburden stress. The Grosmont reservoir is a highly fractured carbonate rock with excellent reservoir properties (i.e. high fracture permeability and porosity). The targeted producing horizons in this reservoir are Grosmont C (20 m pay) and D (30 m pay) unit, which are separated by a laterally extensive, 1-2 m thick Marl. The initial injectivity, which is superior to bitumen saturated sand reservoirs, can be explained by either high initial water mobility in the fractures or large system compressibility, or a combination of both. Since the Grosmont C unit is highly fractured, it can be characterized as a box filled with sugar cubes. The ‘stiff’ cubes can locally be displaced if the fractures are allowed to drain. Geo-mechanical simulations with deterministic fractures allow the calculation of the system compressibility and Young's Modulus, based on variations of fracture and matrix properties. Results indicate that the fracture properties dominate the system characterization. Using these insights, initial injectivity of a pilot well is matched with a reservoir model and a coupled geo-mechanical reservoir model to quantify the roles initial water mobility, matrix displacement and temperature play during cyclic operation of a naturally fractured reservoir.
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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 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 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".