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Measuring stiffness of soils in situ
Published in Fusao Oka, Akira Murakami, Ryosuke Uzuoka, Sayuri Kimoto, Computer Methods and Recent Advances in Geomechanics, 2014
Fusao Oka, Akira Murakami, Ryosuke Uzuoka, Sayuri Kimoto
Thermal recovery methods have been extensively used to extract oil from heavy oil sand reservoirs, especially in Northern Alberta, Canada. A mong these, SAGD is one of the most effective methods which involves the injection of steam at high pressure and temperature into the oil sand formation through an upper horizontal injection well with a lower horizontal well acting as the producer. As steam condenses in contact with the surrounding formation, it transfers heat to the latter thereby significantly reducing the viscosity of the heavy oil and increasing its mobility in the pore space. In the past several years, many numerical studies have been conducted on the thermal recovery process based on well-established multiphase fluid flow theory. For instance, Shutler (1969) studied a threephase dead oil model which is described by fluid flow balance and energy equations. Coats et al. (1974) presented a fully coupled three-dimensional, three-phase steam injection model assuming oil is non-volatile. Crookston et al. (1979) proposed a comprehensive insitu combustion model in which a pseudo-equilibrium scheme is invoked to address the issue of phase change frequently encountered in reservoir simulation.
Modular Systems in Oil Industry
Published in Yatish T. Shah, Modular Systems for Energy and Fuel Recovery and Conversion, 2019
While SAGD leaves a much lighter environmental footprint than surface mining, since it causes minimal ground disturbance and does not require tailing ponds, the operations are demanding in their water requirements. According to estimates, between three and four barrels of water are needed to produce one barrel of oil [35]. Considering the dual challenges of sourcing fresh water, a scarce commodity in northern Alberta, plus the tremendous energy required to raise the temperature high enough to produce steam, the necessity for water conservation becomes clear. This is especially true in the oil sands, where rising costs have driven operating margins into razor-thin territory [35].
Applications of Distributed Temperature Sensors (DTSs)
Published in Arthur H. Hartog, An Introduction to Distributed Optical Fibre Sensors, 2017
SAGD is a rather delicate process in that the formation must be heated sufficiently for the oil to flow, but any non-uniformity in the heating can result in the steam breaking through directly to the producer. If this occurs, a slow and expensive remedial process of heating without flowing the producer is required. In addition, steam is expensive in terms of costs and of energy; some 65%75% of the operating costs of a SAGD development are related to steam production. The operator tries to maintain a pre-determined difference, known as the subcool, between the temperature of the steam leaving the injection tubing and that of the fluid entering the production string.
The flue gas-solvent assisted steam assisted gravity drainage studies: experiments and numerical simulation in extra-heavy oil reservoirs
Published in Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, 2019
Jie Fan, Baoguang Jin, Jing Yang, Xianzhang Fan
Extra-heavy oil is characteristic by high viscosity and poor mobility, so it is developed mostly by thermal recovery to use the strong temperature sensitivity of viscosity, such as cyclic steam stimulation, steam flooding, in situ combustion, and steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) (Bao, Wang, and Gates 2016; Chang, Zhang, and Hu et al. 1997; Fan and Li 2015a; Liu 2013; Sudiptya and Berna 2018; Sun et al. 2018a). Over 30 years have passed since the proposal of SAGD, which has gone through basic research, field pilot test, and successfully transferred to the commercial development (Areeba et al. 2019; Butler and Stephens 1981; Chow and Butler 1996; Fan and Li 2016; Igbokwe, Obumse, and EnamulHossain 2019). But some problems affect the development performance of SAGD, specifically high energy consumption and heat loss to overburden. In addition, the enormous volume of CO2 emissions also generates environmental problems. Therefore, the application of SAGD is limited by both cost and environmental factors (Fan and Li 2015b; Liu, Cheng, and Huang et al. 2018; Tian, Liu, and Pang 2017).
Multi-molecular mixed polymer flooding for heavy oil recovery
Published in Journal of Dispersion Science and Technology, 2022
Zhenquan Li, Jian Hou, Wenbin Liu, Yueliang Liu
Oil and gas reserves has been widely discovered all over the world. Increasing production of oil and gas are mostly produced from the unconventional resources, especially in the North America [1]. In recent years, heavy oil and bitumen resources have been extensively recovered to satisfy the energy requirement. The application of thermal methods has some crucial challenges due to its economic and environmental obstacles, especially in North America, Latin America, Middles East, China and so on [2]. For example, SAGD is a thermal process, requiring energy to turn water into steam, which is commercially expensive. In addition, the fresh water supply is another environmental issue inhibiting the application of the thermal methods [3, 4].
Numerical analysis on performance of induced gas flotation machine using MUSIG model
Published in Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics, 2020
Jin-Woo Lee, Kuk Jin Jung, Youn-Jea Kim
In various developing industries, the use of fossil fuel energy is steadily increasing. In reality, conventional oil production alone cannot cope with the increasing demand for energy. Accordingly, the importance of unconventional oil production is emphasized to meet this demand (Grushevenko & Grushevenko, 2012; Hongjun et al., 2016). Among these oil production systems, oil sand plants are attracting much attention due to not only the large amount of potential buried oil but also the steady development of drilling and separation techniques. As a drilling and extraction technique for oil sand, steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) technology is widely used. SAGD technology involves the excavation of wells in oil sand deposits, into which two pipes are inserted. High-temperature steam is then injected through one of the pipes to increase the permeability in the soil while lowering the viscosity of the oil sand. In general, the viscosity of crude oil sand like bitumen is about 5 million times that of water, so this process is essential for effective drilling. SAGD technology shows a high extraction rate, and it is mainly used for the development of petroleum-based resources like heavy oil and oil sand. It can be advantageous for continuously acquiring bitumen. However, in the process of producing bitumen, excessive amounts of water are required. The wasted water can cause severe water pollution. Meanwhile, there is a trend toward developing power generation systems that consider not only generation capacity but also environmental protection. Therefore, there are some needs for efficient wastewater treatment and the future development of technology for water pollution prevention.