production of highly viscous tar sand bitumen using steam assisted gravity drainage (sagd) with a pair of horizontal wells has advantages over conventional steam flooding. this paper explores the use of artificial neural networks (anns) as an alternative to the traditional sagd simulation approach. feed forward, multi-layered neural network meta-models are trained through the back-error-propaga...

We present a lab-on-a-chip approach to informing thermal oil recovery processes. Bitumen - a major global resource - is an extremely viscous oil which is extracted by injecting steam underground in a process known as Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD). Here, a microfluidic network saturated with bitumen provides a physical model of the SAGD reservoir; steam is injected into the chip, and th...

The impact of steam quality, circulation rate and pressure difference between the well pair during SAGD initialization using steam circulation was explored through the use of numerical simulations employing a discretized wellbore model. These operating parameters appear to affect uniformity of reservoir heating, occurrence of steam breakthrough and time required to establish communication betwe...

It is widely considered that the continued development and production of Alberta’s oil sands deposits is on track to be the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada over the next few decades. As recent developments suggest, failure to address the issue of GHG emissions growth might jeopardize the potential for sustained expansion of oil sands operations in Alberta. Wit...

Steam-Assistant-Gravity-Drainage (SAGD) has become one of the most commonly used thermal recovery processes to extract heavy oil from oil sand reservoirs, especially in Northern Alberta, Canada. However, due to geological history, interbedded shales (IBS) in the reservoir act as barriers due to their low permeability and as such hinder the progression of the steam chamber. Cap-rock integrity al...

The development of heavy oil reservoirs in China is great significance to safeguard national energy security, but challenges are faced due the complex and heterogeneous reservoir properties. Inter-well connectivity analysis critical enhancing performance, as it a good way interpret fluid flow provides theoretical basis for injection-production optimization. Data-driven deep learning methods hav...

This report analyzes the technical aspects and the economics of utilizing nuclear reactor to provide the energy needed for a Canadian oil sands extraction facility using SteamAssisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) technology. The energy from the nuclear reactor would replace the need for energy supplied by natural gas, which is currently burned at these facilities. There are a number of concerns surr...

The oil (diluted bitumen)–water separation efficiency at steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process conditions has been evaluated in a laboratory environment by using custom-built batch setup, SAGD field fluids and commercial gas condensate as diluent. key parameters investigated are solvent amount, shear conditions, water-to-oil ratio, the presence wettability of fine solids. results demon...

A technique capable of capturing the dynamics of reservoir fluids in the proximity of production wells would provide enormous benefits to the reservoir management. In fact, monitoring can be used to develop a feedback loop between measurements and control technologies to optimize production. This paper validates the feasibility of a borehole radar tool as a permanent down-hole sensor for near-w...