Patent ID: 7797139

Claim:
A method of scheduling cyclic steaming of a plurality of petroleum-containing wells comprising: (a) inputting to a production-predicting means a plurality of data describing at least in part past cyclic steaming and resulting production of a plurality of petroleum-containing wells, wherein said production-predicting means comprises a computer-implemented component stored in a computer memory, and is processed in a computer processor in communication with said computer memory and a computer storage, an computer input and an computer output devices; (b) processing said data in said production-predicting means and outputting a plurality of production predictions for said plurality of wells during a future steaming cycle; (c) inputting said plurality of production predictions into an Optimal Cycle Length (OCL) scheduling means adapted and configured for varying t prod to maximize the equation f ⁡ ( t ) t stm + t soak + t prod where t stm is steaming time, t soak is soaking time, t prod is production time, and f(t) is an objective function of time t, thereby producing an initial steaming cycle schedule; (d) inputting said plurality of production predictions and said initial steaming cycle schedule for said plurality of wells into an optimization means; (e) processing said plurality of production predictions and said initial steaming cycle schedule in said optimization means by the steps comprising: (1) determining a ranking for said initial steaming cycle schedule for said plurality of production predictions against pre-determined ranking criteria; (2) producing in a schedule optimization algorithm a plurality of new steaming cycle schedules based on said ranking of said initial steaming cycle schedule; (3) determining a ranking for said new steaming cycle schedules against said pre-determined ranking criteria; (4) repeating said production of new steaming cycle schedules and determining ranking steps until a pre-determined termination criteria are met; and (5) outputting a final steaming cycle schedule.