SAGD

In-situ extraction of heavily sulfured oil by use of steam injection comes with a high risk of hydrogen-sulfide production resulting from aquathermolysis reactions. This could lead to casualties, environment damage, and corrosion of surface facilities and wells. Also, a strong need exists to understand aquathermolysis reactions and to forecast the generation of acid g…

This paper describes the findings of a root-cause analysis of wellhead-penetrator failures in Canadian steam-assisted gravity-drainage operations and the mitigation measures taken.

Oil sands producers predicted they could reduce production by 300,000 B/D by turning down steam injection. This will test methods to reduce, rather than stop, injection to avoid the damage caused by rapid cooling in some wells.

When oil demand vaporized, oil sands producers cut 300,000 B/D of production from wells using steam injection to produce bitumen. It is a huge test of something they have long been reluctant to do—turn down in-situ production when prices plunge.

Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) performance in bitumen-recovery projects in Alberta is affected by geological deposits, reservoir quality, and operational experience.

The complete paper describes piloting the collection and analysis of distributed temperature and acoustic sensing (DTS and DAS, respectively) data to characterize flow-control-device (FCD) performance and help improve understanding of steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) inflow distribution.

The complete paper presents an automated approach to optimizing placement of flow-control devices (FCDs) in SAGD well-pair completions.

This paper uses a simulation model to evaluate and compare the thermal efficiency of five different completion design cases during the SAGD circulation phase in the Lloydminster formation in the Lindbergh area in Alberta, Canada.

The complete paper provides an overview of the development of fiber-optic sensing for steam-assisted-gravity-drainage (SAGD) applications, including a review of more than 10 years of work in development and field applications in western Canada.

The authors discuss a new way of extracting deformation information from radar imagery, contributing to improved accuracy of InSAR surface-elevation monitoring.