第59期MarianaThornbury油砂项目的开发方案优化

时间：3月4日，星期日，下午2:00-4:30
地点：中央图书馆Central Library Meeting Room 1

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中加石油工程协会
中加石油协会
卡尔加里石油非正式论坛

Optimization of the Mariana Thornbury in-situ oil sands development

Speaker: Weishan Ren, PhD, P. Geo., RWS Geomodeling Ltd. / PTTEP Canada Ltd.
Abstract

第59期MarianaThornbury油砂项目的开发方案优化

Oil sands development is facing great challenges with current low oil prices. Optimization of development plans has become more critical to the economic success of oil sands projects.

The oil sands in situ development plan involves multiple disciplines. It requires information not only from subsurface SAGD recoverable pay and thief zones to place horizontal wells but also from surface facilities and environmental constraints to place surface pads. A good understanding of subsurface geology with sufficient well data and seismic data could lead to a good characterization of the SAGD recoverable pay and thief zones; appropriately using geostatistical modeling methods will generate realistic geological 3D models. Utilizing the geological information and 3D geomodels to place horizontal wells is not straightforward. Horizontal wells are planned with uneven pay base surfaces. The drainage areas (DA), which houses a set of horizontal well pairs, needs to be placed in bitumen zones with irregular shapes of non-pay facies locally dominated, and with consideration of bottom water, top lean, top water or other ‘thief zones’. Surface pads (SP), which are tied to each DA, are greatly influenced by surface constraints such as lakes, rivers, roads, pipelines, and AER environmental regulations. The optimization of an oil sands development plan deals with all these challenges to determine the best DA and SP layout for a field to be produced where recovery or economic potential is maximized.

The main reservoir in the In Situ Project Area (ISPA) of Mariana Thornbury phase 1 is comprised of stacked sandy channels and point bars deposited during middle McMurray time. The south to north trending channels sometimes are directly in contact with the lower McMurray sands, forming deep and narrow bitumen saturated sands or SAGD recoverable pay. The original development plan of the ISPA has been laid out with 32 DAs. There is an ongoing effort to further improve the development plan in ISPA.

Optimization of drainage areas and surface pads for the Mariana Thornbury in situ project has been done with incorporation of all information from surface, subsurface, economic, and engineering disciplines. The optimization has achieved an increase of net value by more than 30% from the original DASP layout. Even with 31% drop on the number of SAGD DA and 23% drop on the number of well pairs, the optimized DASP layout is able to increase the bitumen recoverable volume significantly. Some of the learnings will be presented during the session. The challenge of the optimization is more toward characterization of reservoir heterogeneity, especially the IHS facies distribution and dealing with the geological uncertainty. Reservoir simulation of each DA has been implemented to verify the results of optimized layout.

Biography

Dr. Ren is currently a director of RWS geomodeling Ltd., and a geomodeling specialist contractor to PTTEP Canada Ltd. Previously, he worked as a Sr. Geomodeler with PennWest Canada Ltd, and as a Principal Geologist, Geomodeler with Statoil Canada Ltd. and as a Geostatistian, Geomodeling Advisor on Surmont Oil Sands project with ConocoPhillips Canada. Weishan has more than 18 years of working experience in oil and gas industry, and he holds a Ph.D. degree in petroleum engineering and a M.Sc. degree in reservoir engineering from the University of Alberta, and a Bachelor degree in petroleum geological exploration from the Southwest Petroleum University, China. He is the chairman of CSPG geomodeling committee since 2007.

第59期MarianaThornbury油砂项目的开发方案优化