Numerical and experimental modelling of the steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process

For complex petroleum recovery processes, an experimental investigation is usually performed with a numerical simulation to study the recovery mechani sm(s). In this paper, both physical and numerical simulations of the steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process were performed. One of the objecti ves of the numerical investigation was to determine the match between numer ical results with data generated from scaled model experiments. The Compute r Modelling Group's (CMG) STARS(TM) thermal simulator was used. Results fro m the numerical simulation were found to be in reasonable agreement with th ose obtained from the experiments for oil production rates, and cumulative oil production. In addition, the steam chamber volume and temperature distr ibution were also examined. Effects of different parameters, such as steam injection pressure, vertical separation between injection and production wells, and reservoir thickness , on the performance of the SAGD process were investigated. They were obser ved to have the same effects on both experimental and numerical results. Th e numerical simulator was also used to study the influence of rock and flui d properties, such as oil viscosity, permeability, porosity, and the amount of heat loss from the reservoir to the surroundings.