Reservoir Simulation of Hydrogen Sulfide Production During a Steam-Assisted-Gravity-Drainage Process by Use of a New Sulfur-Based Compositional Kinetic Model

Abstract

Summary Steam injection is commonly used as a thermal enhanced-oil-recovery (EOR) method because of its efficiency for recovering hydrocarbons, especially from heavy-oil and bitumen reservoirs. Reservoir models simulating this process describe the thermal effect of the steam injection, but generally neglect the chemical reactions induced by the steam injection and occurring in the reservoir. In particular, these reactions can lead to the generation and production of the highly toxic and corrosive acid gas hydrogen sulfide (H2S). The overall objective of this paper is to quantitatively describe the chemical aquathermolysis reactions that occur in oil-sands reservoirs undergoing steam injections and to provide oil companies with a numerical model for reservoir simulators to forecast the H2S-production risks. For that purpose, a new sulfur-based compositional kinetic model has been developed to reproduce the aquathermolysis reactions in the context of reservoir modeling. It is derived from results gathered on an Athabasca oil sand from previous laboratory aquathermolysis experiments. In particular, the proposed reactions model accounts for the formation of H2S issued from sulfur-rich heavy oils or bitumen, and predicts the modification of the resulting oil saturate, aromatic, resin, and asphaltene (SARA) composition vs. time. One strength of this model is that it is easily calibrated against laboratory-scale experiments conducted on an oil-sand sample. Another strength is that its calibration is performed while respecting the constraints imposed by the experimental data and the theoretical principles. In addition, in this study no calibration was needed at reservoir scale against field-production data. In the paper, the model is first validated with laboratory-scale simulations. The thermokinetic modeling is then coupled with a 2D reservoir simulation of a generic steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process applied on a generic Athabasca oil-sand reservoir. This formulation allows investigating the H2S generation at reservoir scale and quantifying its production. The H2S- to bitumen-production ratio against time computed by the reservoir simulation is found to be consistent with production data from SAGD operations in Athabasca, endorsing the proposed methodology.