Casing Temperature Studies in Steam Injection Wells

Abstract

Abstract The key to realistic casing stress analysis in thermal recovery installations is accurate knowledge of the temperatures involved. Much information leading to prediction of heat losses from tubing string to wellbore has been published. This same information permits calculation of casing temperature under certain conditions. This paper reviews the basis for most of the published work, the line sources solution to the diffusivity equation and examines some of its application criteria in the light of unsteady-state conditions. An alternate finite differences method is presented for correlation, and experimental data pertaining to the heat transfer mechanism in the annulus is reported. In the light of the information presented in the paper, it appears that the assumption of a line source for the tubing-wellbore system is valid even for reasonably short periods of heat flow, such as "steam soak" operations. The empirically modified equation presented earlier matches computer derived results of the finite differences approach for periods as short as 50 hours. Previously predicted casing temperatures and the associated stress levels are thus verified based on these correlative computations and the reported experimental information. Fall-out from the computer output resulting in some studies of the influence of insulating cement properties on casing temperature, and experimentally studied effects of nitrogen placed in the annulus at various pressures, are described. Introduction Generally speaking, predictions of average casing temperatures have been based on an idealized model involving a centralized tubing string at uniform constant temperature radiating energy towards the casing under steady-state conditions. Heat is transferred away from the casing to the formation by unsteady-state conduction across thermal barriers consisting of cement and the mud sheath., Heat balances written on the casing permit prediction of instantaneous casing temperatures. During early periods of injection, casing temperature varies appreciably as a function of time; however, for long injection times this variation decays as heat flow from the wellbore to the formation stabilizes, and it becomes virtually negligible as conditions surrounding the wellbore become quasi-steady-state (Fig. 1). Carslaw and Jaeger describe a solution to the diffusivity equation for a line source (Fig. 2). A constant supply of heat is introduced into the medium from the line placed into the origin of the x-y coordinate system and parallel to the z-axis. Heat spreads outward in the infinite cylindrical solid and the temperature increase on a line going through point (x, y) parallel to the z-axis at a distance r can be predicted by: .....(1) JPT P. 1157ˆ