Application of Autonomous Inflow Control Valve for Enhanced Bitumen Recovery by Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage

EasyChair Preprint 15973

Abstract

Steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is a method for enhanced bitumen recovery. Co-injection of steam and non-condensable gases (NCGs) have been deployed by SAGD operators at the later stage of the SAGD life to maintain the reservoir pressure. The co-injection of steam and NCGs reduce steam consumption. Reduction of injected steam will improve the steam to oil ratio (SOR). Breakthrough of gas and steam in some parts of the well results in a poor distribution of the steam and loss of the required gas in the steam chamber. This limits the oil production and increases the SAGD operation cost. Autonomous inflow control valve (AICV) is able to restrict the production of gas and/or steam. The objective of this paper is to investigate the performances of AICV and passive inflow control device (ICD) in a SAGD production well. This is achieved by developing a dynamic wellbore-reservoir model in the OLGA-Rocx simulator. Reservoir and fluid properties were specified in Rocx and the wellbore model was developed in OLGA. Coupling OLGA and Rocx enable the user to simulate the fluid production from the reservoir into the well. The simulation results demonstrated the significant benefit of AICV in gas and/or steam reduction compared to ICD. Limiting gas and/or steam production in the breakthrough zones will able the well operators to run the well with a lower bottom hole pressure. Due to this, a higher sandface drawdown in the zones with less mobile oil is achieved, and thus oil production from these zones is increased. From environmental aspect, reduction in the steam to oil ratio by utilizing AICV will reduce the energy demand for steam generation. This will eventually improve the economics of SAGD projects. Also, reduction in the steam and energy demand will consequently contribute to lower the intensity of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Keyphrases: Autonomous Inflow Control Valve (AICV), Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), Near-well simulation, OLGA/Rocx, Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD)

@booklet{EasyChair:15973,
  author    = {Soheila Taghavi Hosnaroudi and Farzan Farsi Madan and Ramesh Timsina and Britt Margrethe Emilie Moldestad},
  title     = {Application of Autonomous Inflow Control Valve for Enhanced Bitumen Recovery by Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 15973},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2025}}