A new comprehensive model to estimate the steam chamber expansion and recovery performance of entire SAGD process

Steam-Assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) technique has been successfully applied to unlock the oilsands resources in Canada. But to accurately estimate the steam chamber expansion and productivity of the entire lifetime of a SAGD well pair is still challenging. In this paper, a new comprehensive model is proposed encompassing the different stages of SAGD. Firstly, for the rising stage, based on the theory of volumetric displacement, an analytical model is developed for the rise speed and oil rate. Thereafter, based on Butler's theory, a 2D numerical approach is modelled for predicting the lateral spreading and confinement stage of steam chamber. Thus, combining the two different mathematical models, the steam chamber shape and recovery performance of a SAGD process can be calculated. The calculation results are also compared against 3D experimental results and field data to confirm the accuracy of this model. Then, a sensitivity analysis is performed to discuss the effects of operation parameters on steam chamber expansion and recovery performance of SAGD process. Results indicate that the calculated results can match the experiment results and field date very well. The calculated peak oil production rate causes a large error and the plateau time of SAGD process obviously is shortened if the pre-heating stage is neglected. A higher steam chamber pressure results in a narrower inverted triangle interface shape in the rising stage and a more concave-like interface in the sideways expansion stage. In addition, the oil rate increases with steam chamber pressure allowing for varying steam injection rate, whereas the increasing trend of ultimate recovery decreases with the steam chamber pressure increases, which indicates that a proper steam chamber pressure to be chosen can not only achieve a preferable ultimate recovery but also benefit for project economics.