Solvent-Enhanced Steamdrive: Experiences From the First Field Pilot
Authors: Wilson Adam 
Published: January 2017

This article, written by Special Publications Editor Adam Wilson, contains highlights of paper SPE 175414, “Solvent-Enhanced Steamdrive: Experiences From the First Field Pilot in Canada,” by M.L. Verlaan, SPE, and R. Hedden, SPE, Shell Canada; and O. Castellanos Díaz, V. Lastovka, SPE, and C.A. Giraldo Sierra, Shell Chemicals Americas, prepared for the 2015 SPE Kuwait Oil and Gas Show, Mishref, Kuwait, 11–14 October. The paper has not been peer reviewed.

In recent years, the addition of a hydrocarbon condensate to steam operations in heavy-oil and bitumen reservoirs has emerged as potential technology to improve not only oil recovery but also energy efficiency. The idea of solvent addition to a steamdrive process has been extended and applied for the first time in the Peace River area in Canada. There, evidence was obtained of oil uplift in the patterns where solvent was injected. However, piloting this new technology in a brownfield had many challenges, especially when evaluating its main economic factors: production increase and solvent recovery.

Introduction

Vertical-well steamdrive (VSD) is the selected process to recover bitumen from the Peace River Bluesky formation. Solvent coinjection has been identified as an economical method to improve the efficiency of this process. In an early phase of the steamdrive, a slug of hydrocarbon condensate (diluent) is coinjected with the steam. The solvent condenses at the cold steam/bitumen interface to form a solvent bank. This bank has the potential to accelerate bitumen production by viscosity reduction and to improve ultimate recovery.

The efficiency of the diluent coinjection in a steamdrive process is expected to be lower than that of liquid addition to steam for enhanced recovery; however, the solvent recovery factors are expected to be much higher. The solvent recovery, therefore, is a key factor in the economic viability of the process. The main objectives of the pilot were to obtain a positive response in bitumen production and accurate quantification of the diluent recovery. An accurate assessment of the bitumen-production increase was not expected because of the small size of the pilot and lack of control patterns; hence, the injection slug size and concentration were designed to obtain a significant and measurable bitumen response.

Pilot Design

The Peace River lease in Alberta, Canada, has been subject to many well-and recovery-technology trials in the last 30 years. One of the technologies tried is cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) with multilateral horizontal wells. Pad 19 has been developed with so-called “soak radial wells”—four horizontal laterals in a cross pattern. Over a 9-year time frame, bitumen has been produced in seven to eight CSS cycles. With a recovery of less than 20% from the initial design, a part of the pad has been converted to a pattern steamdrive to increase recovery to more than 50%. Vertical injectors and producers are drilled to complete the 5-acre inverted- fivespot patterns. Vertical producers are perforated over almost the complete interval, while steam injectors have been completed with five limited-entry perforations (LEPs) to distribute the steam evenly over the entire reservoir interval.