Geomechanical and Thermal Simulation of ES-SAGD Process

Abstract

Abstract Overlying top water and gas thief zones have a detrimental effect on the Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) recovery process since steam penetrates into these zones which results in great heat loss. Due to the presence of these top thief zones, recovering bitumen by the SAGD process has become challenging for the Athabasca oil sands. Numerical simulations, laboratory experiments and field production data have demonstrated that oil production tends to decrease as the depletion of top gas occurs; also, heat loss to the overlying thief zone will be more significant when a top water zone is present. Indeed, SAGD is a coupled geomechanical, thermal and fluid flow problem because continuous steam injection changes reservoir pore pressure and temperature, which can alter the effective stress in-situ. Therefore, to represent the physics of thermal flow and soil geomechanics, a coupled geomechanical simulation that solves the flow and stress equation simultaneously in the reservoir is crucial for modeling the SAGD process. The objective of this paper is to construct a 3D geostatistical model for the Surmont pilot and implement coupled geomechanical modeling for the SAGD process aiming at investigating the impact of dilation and thermal expansion on the surface subsidence and bitumen recovery. Reasonable history match of oil and water rates has been achieved and steam chamber profiles have been conformed to the field data from the observation wells. An Expanding Solvent Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (ES-SAGD) process has been investigated on a full field-based heterogeneous simulation model using an optimal solvent mixture. Finally, geomechanical effects on the ES-SAGD process are investigated through an iterative coupling approach.