Analysis and Design of Thermal Recovery Projects

By: Dr. Mazda Irani
(5 days) – August 22-26, 2022

Course Objectives:

This is a comprehensive course on understanding and design of different thermal recovery processes: steam-flooding, SAGD, and CSS. There is ample opportunity to work on problems in class. By the end of this course, participants will be able to analysis and interpret evaluations done by others.

Live Online:
$2,400.00 plus 5% (GST)

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This course is aimed at the reservoir, petroleum, and exploitation engineers/technologists, geophysicists, and geologists who are involved in the analysis and design of thermal recovery schemes.

Dr. Mazda Irani is the Chief Scientist of Ashaw Energy Ltd. He is currently engaged in the designing and optimization of Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) and proper near wellbore modeling for the SAGD wells. One of his main tasks is to help and develop software that can help operators run their SAGD wells at optimum subcool, manage the hot spots, and modify their FCD design in heterogeneous reservoirs. He published a trilogy paper named “On Subcool Control in Steam-Assisted-Gravity-Drainage Producers” Dr. Irani was previously employed in technical and supervisory roles with Cenovus Energy, Variperm Canada, Suncor Energy, RPS Energy, and C-FER Technologies.

He has published and presented more than 60 technical papers on different aspects of SAGD operation. Dr. Irani holds a Ph.D. in petroleum engineering (U of C 2017) and geomechanics (U of 2012) and three Masters’ degrees in petroleum engineering, geotechnical engineering, and structural engineering.

Day 1:

An introduction to the different thermal schemes

  • Steam flooding
  • Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS)
  • SAGD
  • VAPEX
  • In-Situ Combustion
  • THAI process
  • Cold heavy oil production with sands (CHOPS)

Day 2:

Thermodynamic Properties of Water and Steam and the basics of heat transfer in thermal recovery processes are discussed. In this section effects of temperature on viscosity and density will be also explored.

  • Benefits of drilling horizontal and directional wells
  • Uncertainties and risks; geological, drilling, and completion
  • Case studies

Day 3:

An introduction to Butler’s assumptions and mathematical principles and its limitations and also briefly discusses other studies which address steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) oil production is discussed

  • SAGD Heat Transfer
  • Butler Temperature Model
  • Sharma Gates Convection Model
  • Irani and Ghannadi Convection Model
  • Butler Production Model
  • Butler Plateau Model
  • Butler Ramp-up Model
  • Accurate Ramp-up Model
  • Accurate Winddown Model

Day 4:

Analytical modeling of Steam flooding and CSS. The following topics will be covered:
Steam flooding Analytical models:

  • Reservoir Heating by Fluid Injection
  • Energy Balance and Heat Loss Rates
  • Marx-Langenheim Solution
  • Heated Area Growth Rates

CSS Analytical models:>

  • `Boberg and Lantz method
  • Towson and Boberg model

Day 5:

Introduction to different new-technologies processes used in Heavy Oil, such as:
Solvent applications:

  • Pure Solvent: VAPEX, Nsolv
  • Partial Solvent: SA-SAGD, LASER

Electromagnetic Heating:

  • Electrical Heaters (Ohmic Heating),
  • RF-Heating
  • Analytical models to calculate the heating process