CLAIM:
We claim that this is the most complete heavy oil recovery course presently on the market, as it gives knowledge, in a very integrated way, not only about thermal methods but also about primary recovery (including CHOPS method) and waterflooding and polymer flooding applications in case of heavy oils. As well, screening criteria on selecting a method or the best succession of methods is discussed.

Heavy oil recovery methods

Course outline

This course will cover the reservoir engineering aspects of oil recovery by steam-injection based oil recovery processes, in situ combustion (ISC), and primary recovery by CHOPS (cold heavy oil production with sands). Therefore, it is a complete course in the sense that both primary, secondary and even tertiary recovery of the heavy oil is presented; even the waterflooding and polymer flooding applications in case of heavy oils are presented. The emphasis is both on the fundamentals and physical simulation, and on the field applications, including piloting and commercial scale; the largest commercial operations are analysed for each process. Also, the emerging technologies are presented for each category of processes.

I. Cold Heavy Oil Production With Sands (CHOPS)

• Introduction/Background/History; Who invented CHOPS?!
• Primary Recovery by Solution Gas Drive (SGD) and Enhanced Solution Gas Drive (ESGD) or Foamy Oil Mechanism; the crucial difference between SGD and ESGD
• CHOPS (Cold Heavy Oil Production with Sand) as a means to activate the ESGD Mechanism/ Progressive Cavity Pumps (PCP) use to sustain CHOPS
• Field Observations; use of PCP’s
• Laboratory investigations for foamy oil and CHOPS
1. Foamy oil
   • Micromodels
   • Pressure depletion tests
   • Oil-gas dispersion mobility tests
2. CHOPS
   • Sand production in lab tests; laboratory wormholes and scouring regions
   • Sand transportation within wormholes
• Heavy oil reservoir characteristics making reservoirs amenable to CHOPS exploitation; vertical wells versus horizontal wells (HW) use
• State of reservoir at the end of CHOPS exploitation; assessment of CHOPS related heterogeneities; representation of wormholes in the simulator.
• Pros and cons for CHOPS acceptance (thickness criterion); when to opt for CHOPS and when for other approaches. Technical limitations in further advancement of CHOPS
• Example of almost complete information for a field exploited by CHOPS (L. reservoir); other field examples
• Technical means to promote CHOPS exploitation; triggering the generation of wormholes (sand production on demand)

II. Waterflooding and Polymer Flooding of Heavy Oils

1. Waterflooding With Vertical Wells
   • Essential Buckley Leverett Fundamentals
   • Prediction, its lack of reliability
   • Field Reality
   • Conclusions
2. Waterflooding With Horizontal Wells
   • Using Side-By-Side (SBS) or Face-to-face (FTF) Horizontal Wells
     
   • Toe-to-Heel Waterflooding (TTHW) process, including its field testing in Medicine Hat
     
   • Glauconitic C (MHGC) reservoir, Canada and Wolco Field in USA
     
   • Conclusions; limits in application
3. Polymer Flooding Heavy Oil Reservoirs
   • The theory behind the success; essential fundamentals
   • Laboratory testing
   • Commercial application of polymer flooding in Marmul, Oman and Pelican Lake, Canada
   • Conclusions

III. Steam-Injection Based Oil Recovery Processes

1. Fundamentals
   • Liquid to vapour phase change for water and the heat content of steam
   • Heat losses during steam/hot water injection
   • Screening criteria for the steam-based injection methods
2. Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS)
   • Mechanisms
   • Implementation
   • Prediction techniques
   • Use of CSS for conditioning of reservoir in view of application of thermal drive methods (steamflooding and in-situ combustion)
   • Examples of commercial operations
3. Hot water flooding
   • Pros and cons
   • Limited experience/lessons from some field pilots
   • Recent trends for application/field testing
4. Steamdrive
   • Mechanisms
   • Implementation
   • Prediction techniques and evaluation
   • Some commercial operations
   • Recent trends; use of horizontal wells for heat mining
5. Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) and improved SAGD processes
   • Some characteristics of oil sands
   • SAGD and its mechanisms
   • Implementation
   • Case histories
   • Commercial applications
   • VAPEX and its limited success in the field
   • Recent improvements (in-fill horizontal producers, solvent and heat combinations (ES-SAGD), etc

IV. Oil Recovery by In-Situ Combustion

1. Qualitative Description of In-Situ Combustion Techniques
   • Forward and Reverse Combustion
   • Dry, Wet and Superwet Combustion
   • Segregated In-Situ Combustion
   • Cyclic In-Situ Combustion (CISC)
2. Mechanisms of the Forward Combustion
   • The Main Chemical Reactions. HTO and LTO
   • Kinetics of oxidation; Apparent Atomic H/C ratio
   • Fuel Availability and Air Requirement
3. The Laws of the ISC Front Propagation
   • Dry Combustion
   • Moderate wet and superwet combustion
4. Basic ISC Laboratory Tests
   • Ramped Temperature Oxidation (RTO) of Oil in Porous Media
   • ARC technique
   • Combustion Front Propagation in a One-Dimensional Cell – Combustion Tube (CT) Tests
5. Theoretical Aspects and Modelling of ISC
   • Analytical Models
   • Numerical Models
   • Main limitations of the Models