Rigorous coupling of geomechanics and thermal-compositional flow for SAGD and ES-SAGD operations

T. T. Garipov, D. V. Voskov, H. A. Tchelepi

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volumeConference contributionScientificpeer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Steam Assistant Gravity Drainage (SAGD) is widely used to recover heavy oil and bitumen reservoirs. Typical SAGD operations involve a pair of horizontal wells separated vertically. Steam, or a steam-solvent mixture (e.g., Expanding- Solvent SAGD), is injected into the upper well to form a steam chamber and mobilize oil, which drains to the lower production well. Significant mechanical stresses associated with this process can increase the risk of fracturing the reservoir, or cap-rock. We perform a fully-coupled thermal-compositional-mechanical numerical simulation of SAGD and ES-SAGD processes for a typical bitumen reservoir in the Fort McMurray region of Alberta, Canada. A mixed finite-volume approximation for the flow and a Galerkin finite-element approximation for the mechanics are used, and the resulting set of nonlinear equations are solved using a fully implicit formulation. The two discretizations share the same unstructured grid. We demonstrate that thermo-mechanical effects can be quite significant in SAGD operations. The sharper gradients associated with the standard SAGD process increase the risk of damaging of the cap-rock. On the other hand, ES-SAGD operations lead to more dispersed temperature and pressure distributions, which decreases the possibility of damaging the cap-rock.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSociety of Petroleum Engineers - SPE Canada Heavy Oil Technical Conference 2015, CHOC 2015
PublisherSociety of Petroleum Engineers
Pages1282-1297
Number of pages16
ISBN (Electronic)9781510811652
Publication statusPublished - 2015
Externally publishedYes
EventSPE Canada Heavy Oil Technical Conference 2015, CHOC 2015 - Calgary, Canada
Duration: 9 Jun 201511 Jun 2015

Conference

ConferenceSPE Canada Heavy Oil Technical Conference 2015, CHOC 2015
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityCalgary
Period9/06/1511/06/15

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