Study of oil filtration in porous media under the steam-assisted gravity drainage process

Abstract

This work is devoted to the development and computer realization of a three-dimensional mathematical model describing the processes of flow, filtration and phase transition during the hot steam injection into a rock mass. The specific feature of the developed model is the possibility to take into account the dependence of thermophysical properties of each component in a multicomponent flow on time or spatial coordinates. It is assumed that considered media is a multicomponent system consisting of steam, oil and water filling the pore space. The developed model includes mass balance equation for components characterizing water and steam saturations, the condition of a fully saturated media to define the oil component of the flow, Darcy’s law for the filtration flow of the multicomponent stream and the law of conservation of energy taking into account the convective heat transfer and the source describing the «steam-water» phase transition. Computer realization of the proposed model is based on the transformation of the system of equations in such a way that the values of steam and water saturations as well as pressure act as unknown variables; representation of the resulting system of equations in a weak form and the introduction of additional stabilization terms. The adequacy of the proposed model and the efficiency of the developed approach to its implementation are illustrated by a three-dimensional numerical simulation of oil production process through the steam-assisted gravity drainage method in the oil sand.