Convection at the Edge of a Steam-Assisted-Gravity-Drainage Steam Chamber

Abstract

Summary Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) has become the preferred process to recover bitumen from Athabasca deposits in Alberta. The method consists of a lower horizontal production well, typically located approximately 2 m above the base of the oil zone, and an upper horizontal injection well located roughly 5 to 10 m above the production well. Steam flows from the injection well into a steam chamber that surrounds the wells and releases its latent heat to the cool oil sands at the edge of the chamber. This research re-examines heat transfer at the edge of the steam chamber. Specifically, a new theory is derived to account for convection of warm condensate into the oil sand at the edge of the chamber. The results show that, if the injection pressure is higher than the initial reservoir pressure, convective heat transfer can be larger than conductive heat transfer into the oil sand at the edge of the chamber. However, enhancement of the heat-transfer rate by convection may not necessarily imply higher oil rates; this can be explained by relative permeability effects at the chamber edge. As the condensate invades the oil sand, the oil saturation drops and, consequently, the oil relative permeability falls. This, in turn, results in the reduction of the oil mobility, despite the lowered oil viscosity because of higher temperature arising from convective heat transfer.