A Comparison Study between the Newly Developed Vertical Wells Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage and the Conventional SAGD Process

A numerical simulation study using the CMG-STAR Simulator was performed to compare the performance of the newly developed process (VWSAGD) utilizing vertical wells to enhance heavy oil recovery during steam assisted gravity drainage against the conventional steam assisted gravity drainage process which utilized horizontal wells (HWSAGD) under the same operating conditions. Two identical reservoir models were simulated for the two processes using 3-Dimensional, black heavy oil model (14° API). Each reservoir type consists of 49 × 49 × 20 grid blocks on a 5-acre model, which incorporated a typical heavy oil reservoir rock and fluid properties taken from the SPE case study, stspe001.dat (CMG 2015 release). A sensitivity analysis for both processes was performed for the grid density, soaking time, steam quality, bottom hole producing pressure, steam injection rate, reservoir thickness, reservoir area, and horizontal to vertical permeability anisotropy. More preferable reservoir conditions are those such as high horizontal to vertical permeability ratio, thick reservoir oil zones, as well as improved reservoir recovery for the VWSAGD process. Under unfavorable conditions such as thin reservoir oil zones, an improved reservoir recovery response was limited for the VWSAGD process and could be uneconomical in real field cases. Finally, the simulation results from this study include cumulative recoveries, Steam oil ratios, produced water-oil ratios, pressure and temperature distributions, and production rates. In addition, the results from this study have shown that the new VWSAGD process is more favorable than the conventional HWSAGD process.