Heavy oil sands measurement and rock-physics modeling

Abstract

Heavy oil reservoirs are important alternative energy resources to conventional oil and gas reservoirs. However, due to the high viscosity of heavy oil, much production of heavy oil reservoirs involves injecting steam, and determining the temperature distribution is significant for production. To do this, time-lapse inversion is commonly used to derive the change of the oil sand properties during steam injection, and rock-physics models are used to link the properties and temperature. Many people have done research on simulating variations of the oil sand properties with temperature; however, the previous models fail to adequately represent our experimental data, and they overestimate their values. The errors between previous models’ predictions and measurements are quite large, especially at low temperatures. To study the oil sand properties, we first measured eight oil sand samples including five presteam samples and three poststeam samples, and we experimentally quantified the pressure sensitivity of velocity, the temperature sensitivity of velocity, and the corresponding [Formula: see text] ratios. Then we developed a new model, introducing a frame damage parameter and a solid oil proportion parameter. This model integrates the solid oil into the sand frame, and it incorporates the temperature-dependent frame damage to characterize the frame moduli variations with increasing temperature. The solid-Gassmann equation was then applied to saturate the sands’ frame with heavy oil. Our simulation results determined that the errors at low temperature and high temperature were both compensated, and the new model fitted better than previous models over the whole measurement temperature range. The modeling was also extended to the thermal production temperature range, and the phase transition of water was considered, which provided a useful indicator of the steam.