Integrated Characterization of Expanding-Solvent Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (ES-SAGD) Processes by Using a Heat-Penetration Criterion within a Unified, Consistent, and Efficient Framework

Abstract

The hybrid solvent-steam injection (e.g., expanding-solvent steam-assisted gravity drainage (ES-SAGD) is the most promising method to enhance heavy oil recovery (EOR); however, it is a quite a challenge to reproduce the experimental measurements and in-situ observations because of the complicated multiphase flow behaviour resulted from the coupled mass and heat transfer. In this work, an integrated technique has been developed and applied for the first time to dynamically and accurately characterize an ES-SAGD process within a unified, consistent, and efficient framework. By taking the competitive impact between heat energy and solvent dissolution, a generalized heat-penetration (HP) criterion has been derived and integrated with a numerical simulator to characterize the dynamics of solvent/steam chamber propagation conditioned to the production profiles during hybrid solvent-steam processes. This generalized HP criterion allows us to not only dynamically calculate temperature profiles beyond a solvent/steam chamber interface (SCI), but also accurately and pragmatically quantify mass and heat transfer inside the diluted oil drainage zone as well as the solvent/steam chamber. Also, comprehensive effects of the thermally sensitive co/counter-current flows are examined with a series of multiphase relative permeabilities. Such an integrated technique has been successfully validated by reproducing the measured solvent/steam chambers in 3D physical ES-SAGD experiments. Good agreements between the simulated and measured production profiles (i.e., injection temperature, pressure, and flow rate) have been made throughout the entire production period. Not only have the measured solvent/steam chambers been reproduced, but also sensitivity analyses have been performed to investigate the influences of multiphase flow behaviour, solvent concentration, and grid dimension. It is found that the diffusion/dispersion coefficients and thermal properties are dependent on temperature and solvent concentrations, competitively affecting the calculated temperature distributions. Moreover, gas-liquid relative permeabilities can impose a significant impact on the SCI moving velocity as well as the oil drainage front. Such an integrated approach considerably reduces the simulation uncertainties and complexities, offering a straightforward and effective means of dynamically reproducing the observed solvent/steam chambers within a unified, consistent, and efficient framework.