SOLVENT AIDED-WATER PRESSURE-CYCLING (SA-WPC) PROCESS IN THE THIN POST-CHOPS RESERVOIRS

Western Canada has vast heavy oil deposits in many thin heavy oil reservoirs with less than 10-m main pay zones. The cold heavy oil production with sand (CHOPS) is the primary production process for the heavy oil reservoirs. However, a typical CHOPS process can recover only 5?15% of the initial oil-in-place and waterflooding has had a limited success. The primary objective of this research project is to explore and optimize a novel solvent-aided water injection strategy, namely, solvent aided-water pressure-cycling (SA-WPC, especially CO2-WPC) process, which promotes the sand production and enhances the heavy oil recovery. The SA-WPC process restores the reservoir productivity by re-pressurizing the reservoir and dissolving the injected solvent into the heavy oil. Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC) will directly benefit from this research project by facilitating the practical oilfield applications of the optimized SA-WPC process in many thin post-CHOPS reservoirs. TO BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

Peter Gu

Student:

Jiangyuan Yao

Partner:

Petroleum Technology Research Centre

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Oil and gas

University:

Program: