This report analyzes the technical aspects and the economics of utilizing nuclear reactor to provide the energy needed for a Canadian oil sands extraction facility using SteamAssisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) technology. The energy from the nuclear reactor would replace the need for energy supplied by natural gas, which is currently burned at these facilities. There are a number of concerns surr...

Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is one efficient and mature technology for recovering heavy oil bitumen resources. The key underlying mechanism the growth of steam chamber after injecting steam. However, due to complex geological environment, thief zones exist have a prejudicial effect on development chamber, thus impacting ultimate heavy-oil recovery. In this work, our objective investi...

SAGD (steam-assisted gravity drainage) technique is one of the most efficient thermal recovery technologies for exploiting Mackay River thin layer oil sand reservoirs. However, when making use traditional (the production and injection well are located on same axis with horizontal spacing 0 m), steam chamber development usually insufficient because high longitudinal sweep rate steam, which serio...

Canada’s in situ oil sands can help meet the global demand. Because of energy-intensive extraction processes, operations also play a critical role meeting carbon budget. The steam ratio (SOR) is an indicator used to measure energy efficiency and assess greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions industry. A low SOR indicates process that more efficient less intensive. In this study, we applied machine learn...

Steam assisted gravity drainage is a thermal method for enhanced bitumen recovery. In this method, steam injected to and heavy oil reduce the viscosity make mobile. However, early breakthrough of in some parts well results loss required amount contact with cold bitumen, poor distribution chamber. This limits production increases SAGD operation cost. Autonomous inflow control valve (AICV) able p...

A technique capable of capturing the dynamics of reservoir fluids in the proximity of production wells would provide enormous benefits to the reservoir management. In fact, monitoring can be used to develop a feedback loop between measurements and control technologies to optimize production. This paper examines the feasibility of a borehole radar tool for near-wellbore imaging. Modeling results...

Based on a recently published theoretical model, in this work we experimentally studied the problem of gravity water drainage due to continuous steam injection into an elliptical porous chamber made glass beads and embedded metallic, quasi-2D, massive cold slab. This configuration mimics process condensation for given time period during growth stage steam-assisted (SAGD) process, method used re...