Abstract
Oil sands are characterized by shallow burial and extremely high viscosity, whose exploration technologies and production methods are quite different from that of conventional oil and gas. Oil sands with the largest reserve scale and best quality in China are developed in Fengcheng area of Junggar Basin. This paper presents the forming conditions and enrichment rules of oil sands in Fengcheng area. The dividing standards for effective thickness of oil sands are established with exploration technologies like high-density drilling, whole well section coring and the method of weight percentage of bitumen. The geologic reserves of oil sands are calculated with the method of weight percentage of bitumen. Open-pit mining practices and SAGD double horizontal well development tests are carried out, and good effects are obtained in SAGD production. At present, Fengcheng oil sands have been developed on a large scale with SAGD technology.
Highlights
Fengcheng oil sands are located in Wuerhe District of Karamay, Xinjiang, about 120 km northeast of Karamay, whose tectonic zones lie in the northwest of proved and developed Fengcheng super-heavy oil reservoir (Fig. 1)
Oil sand layers overlap the edge of the bedrock foothills with shallow burial; some are even directly exposed to the surface
In order to reflect oiliness and weight percentage of bitumen in oil sands, systematic sampling is required: Generally, select two or three samples every meter; when it comes to the area where quality change of oil sands is large, sampling should be appropriately increased to four or five per meter; sampling is required on the top, in the middle and at the bottom for thin oil sand layers
Summary
As the exploration of conventional oil and gas is more and more difficult, the role of the unconventional oil and gas resources—oil sands—is becoming more and more important in the world energy structure (Hein 2006; Xie et al 2013; Humphries 2008; Masliyah 2011); the exploration and development of oil sands have become a hot topic and difficult in the unconventional oil and gas exploration field in China nowadays (Liu et al 2009; Xue et al 2011; Jia et al 2007; Liu 1983; Kang et al 2015; Shan 2015). Oil sands are abundant in resources in China, whose exploration and development are still at an initial stage. The exploration and development degree for oil sands in Fengcheng area of Junggar Basin is the highest in China (Kuang et al 2016). The exploration and evaluation techniques, open-pit mining practices and SAGD double horizontal well tests for oil sands in Fengcheng area are analyzed in this paper, which
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