In Situ Production of Utah Oil Sands
Principal Investigators: Milind Deo, Royhan Gani, Jack Hamilton, Pete Rose
Project Summary: In situ production of oil sand bitumen offers an excellent alternative to the ex situ processes that are based on strip-mining and surface extraction. In addition to leaving the landscape relatively undisturbed, in situ processes allow for partial upgrading of oil sands, leaving heavier, less profitable components of the bitumen in the subsurface.
Some in situ methods use much less water and generate less CO2 than ex situ methods. In addition, in situ approaches allow for the exploitation of much deeper oil sand formations—where the cost of removing the overburden is prohibitively expensive. In situ technologies might be particularly attractive for the State of Utah because of its arid climate and because some of the oil sand deposits are located close to environmentally sensitive areas.
Steam processes including cyclic steaming, steamdrives, and Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) are the most common in situ production processes being used globally for oil sand production. Even though these concepts are relatively simple and have been used successfully in other countries, significant challenges exist in adapting these technologies to Utah oil sand deposits. In this project, available geologic and reservoir information on major oil sand deposits has been collected. Conceptual reservoir models have been created to characterize these deposits and to determine which are the most promising for in-situ production techniques. Various in situ production approaches are being examined for each of the leading-candidate deposits using state of the art reservoir simulation technology in order to determine the most promising in situ production method for each of the reservoirs.
Figures:
Figure 1: The 25 layers used in the cyclic and SAGD simulations. The categories are rich, lean, very lean and barren.
Figure 2: The geometry and the well configuration for the Whiterocks reservoir used in the STARS thermal simulator.
Figure 3: Oil production in Whiterocks – SAGD simulations.
Figure 4: Oil production in Whiterocks – Cyclic simulations
:
Huang, G.-K., Rose, P. E., Deo, M., Gani, G. and Hamilton, J.," In Situ Production of Utah Oil Sands Bitumen," American Institute of Chemical Engineers Annual Meeting, November 4-9, 2007, Salt Lake City, UT.
Deo, M., "Western US Oil Sands and In Situ Processes," Western U. S. Oil Sands Conference, September 18, 2006, Salt Lake City, UT.