Patent ID: 11965403
Assignee: CENOVUS ENERGY INC.
Field: Civil engineering (Other fields)
Classification: CPC E | IPC E

Claim 0:
1. A method for producing hydrocarbons from a subterranean reservoir that is penetrated by an injection well and a production well, wherein the production well comprises a substantially-horizontal section along which a plurality of individually-actuatable fluid-inlet components are spaced apart to define a plurality of production-well fluid-inlet zones in hydraulic communication with the horizontal section of the production well, the method comprising:
i) injecting an injection fluid comprising a solvent into the reservoir, by way of the injection well, to mobilize hydrocarbons in the reservoir, such that a drainage fluid comprising a liquid phase and a gas phase occupies one or more of the production-well fluid-inlet zones, wherein the gas phase comprises at least a portion of the solvent and the liquid phase comprises mobilized hydrocarbons;
ii) producing a production fluid at a production-flow rate via a pump running at a pump speed and in hydraulic communication with the production fluid, wherein the production fluid comprises at least a portion of the liquid phase of the drainage fluid and at least a portion of the gas phase of the drainage fluid such that the production fluid is defined by a liquid phase:gas phase ratio;
iii) during the producing of the production fluid of ii), identifying at least one of the production-well fluid-inlet zones as having a gas content above a threshold and thus being a higher-gas zone by distributed measurements of temperature or acoustic energy along the production well or by evaluation of flow performed autonomously by the fluid inlet components themselves during the producing of the production fluid; and
iv) during the producing of the production fluid of ii), selectively actuating at least one of the plurality of fluid-inlet components based on the at least one of the plurality of fluid-inlet components being adjacent and corresponding to the higher-gas zone as determined in iii), in order to reduce flow of the drainage fluid through only the at least one of the fluid-inlet components corresponding to the higher-gas zone and thereby increase the liquid phase:gas phase ratio of the production fluid by prioritizing hydraulic communication with the rest of the plurality of production-well fluid-inflow zones spaced apart from the higher-gas zone, and orchestrating variations in the pump speed to modulate the production-flow rate and account for the variations in one or more of the plurality of fluid-inlet components.