Mechanistic Study of the Steam-Solvent Co-Injection Process

In-situ bitumen/heavy oil recovery using hot steam is very energy-intensive with high level of greenhouse gases emission. Solvent-steam co-injection not only reduced the steam consumption but also improve the oil recovery through the dilution and in-situ upgrading of bitumen. The success of macro-scale recovery is significantly affected by micro-scale phenomena. Commercial reservoir simulators are not able to describe micro-scale mechanisms of heat and mass transfer in co-injection since pore-scale study at porous media is not well understood yet. Micromodel enables us to qualitatively and quantitatively study the effective mechanisms at vapor-bitumen interface during the co-injection process. The outcome of this project can benefit the oils sands industry as well as InnoTech Alberta by providing them a new reliable platform capable of producing large amount of data in a short time span in the same length scale of solvent/bitumen interface at the reservoir. TO BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

Neda Nazemifard

Student:

Kiarash Keshmiri

Partner:

InnoTech Alberta Inc

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

Oil and gas

University:

Program: