Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 153 (2017) 268–282

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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

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Steam injection gravity drainage as a follow-up process for cyclic steam MARK
stimulation
⁎
Yu Baoa, Jingyi Wangb, Ian D. Gatesb,
a
Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, China National Petroleum Corporation, China
b
Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary, Canada

A R T I C L E I N F O A BS T RAC T

Keywords: Cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) is an effective method to recover extra heavy oil but it achieves a relatively low
Thermal recovery recovery factor (~26% before economic limit is reached) and is less energy efficient with higher emissions
Extra heavy oil intensity than that of conventional oil production. After it reaches its economic limit, it remains unclear what is
Cyclic steam stimulation the follow-up recovery process where the energy and emission intensities can be minimized. Here, a detailed
Liaohe heavy oil field
examination of the Liaohe extra heavy oil CSS and continuous Steam Injection Gravity Drainage (SIGD)
Steam-to-oil ratio
operations is conducted to examine their energy and emission intensities. Further analysis is conducted by using
Steam injection gravity drainage
detailed geological and reservoir models and a history match of the CSS and SIGD operations. The results reveal
that CSS is an effective thermal recovery method to initiate production from extra heavy oil reservoirs and that
SIGD using infill wells is an effective post-CSS recovery process to produce a significant fraction of the
remaining oil from the reservoir. For the reservoir studied, the steam-to-oil ratio (energy efficiency) and
emissions intensity of SIGD is slightly worse than that of the initial CSS operation.

1. Introduction
One of the key differences between Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS)
operations in the Liaohe Oil Field in Northeastern China and those in
Alberta in the Cold Lake oil sands deposit is that the CSS operation in
China was operated below the fracture pressure of the reservoir
(Denbina et al., 1991; Gallant et al., 1993, Boone et al., 1995, Yang,
2006, Yang et al., 2006). This implies that when the steam was injected
into the formation, the steam was sufficient to cause dilation but no
fracturing of the formation occurred. As pointed out by Cokar et al.
(2012) and Bao et al. (2016), steam fracturing enables rapid transport
of heat into the formation yielding greater steam conformance.
The Liaohe heavy oil field steam operation is unique: it started with
a vertical well CSS operation which after a few cycles, transitioned into
a continuous Steam Injection Gravity Drainage (SIGD) operation that
used both vertical and horizontal wells (Yang, 2006; Yang et al., 2006;
Yuan et al., 2010). The chambers initially established by CSS grew
under gravity drainage and continuous production. Controlled and
deliberate transition from CSS to a gravity drainage process has
benefits with respect to steam and heat transfer within the reservoir:
CSS establishes thermal communication between wells by creating hot
reservoir zones surrounding the vertical wells that eventually connect
and create mobilized oil zones throughout the reservoir which in turn
provide a well-established pathway for steam injection and flow after
the horizontal wells are placed in the reservoir and gravity drainage
starts. Here, a detailed examination of the Liaohe heavy oil operation is
analyzed by creating a geological model and then by using reservoir
simulation to history match the CSS and SIGD operations. The main
objective of the study is to understand the benefits of a SIGD operation
as a follow-up process to CSS.
2. Review of geology in the Liaohe oil field
Geological and well trajectory data from the Liaohe oil field
operation in the Guantao Formation were analyzed to construct the
geological model. This data consists of 40 wells with 10 cores, 40 logs,
and 25 fluid analysis measurements. The operation was conducted in
the Shu1 area located in the middle section of the Qishu Upper Step in
the Western Slope in the western depression of the Liaohe Basin. The
main structural feature of this formation is that it dips between 2° and
3° to the southeast. This oil layer consists mainly of an alluvial fan
where deposits were made from flows from an ancient mountainous
region that drained onto a plain. The data show that the reservoir
lithology of the Guantao Oil Layer mainly includes anisotropic hetero-
geneous sandstone where the bounding rock layers consist of conglom-
erates, conglomeratic sandstone, fine sandstone and a small amount of

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ian.gates@ucalgary.ca (I.D. Gates).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2017.04.002
Received 24 October 2016; Received in revised form 15 March 2017; Accepted 5 April 2017
Available online 07 April 2017
0920-4105/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Y. Bao et al. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 153 (2017) 268–282

Table 1
Liaohe Oil Field CSS oil production and steam injection (expressed as cold water equivalent) data. On average, the steam injection pressure, corresponding saturation temperature, and
quality was equal to 10,000 kPa, 311 °C, and 0.76 for all wells, respectively.

Wells Number of completed Duration, days Cumulative steam (CWE) Cumulative produced Cumulative produced cSOR, m3/ CDOR, m3/ TFSR, m3/
cycles injected, m3 Oil, m3 Water, m3 m3 day m3

Well 41 6 506 9572 3620 4496 2.64 7.15 0.85

Well 42 8 1670 33,744 13,073 18,172 2.58 7.83 0.93
Well 43 10 2087 32,132 9600 15,349 3.35 4.60 0.78
Well 45 10 1901 32,524 19,958 16,404 1.63 10.50 1.12
Well 46 9 1773 30,536 11,170 25,820 2.73 6.30 1.21

area of study. In the Guantao oil column, the density and viscosity of
the oil is 1.008 g/cm3 and 230,000 cP (at 50 °C), respectively.

3. Analysis of field data

Initially, extra heavy oil reservoir development and field operations

Fig. 1. Daily oil production rate of CSS operation contains 23 vertical wells of the
Guantao oil layer from 2000 to 2004.
shale (Yang, 2006; Yang et al., 2006; Luan, 2015). The Guantao
Formation reservoir rock is mainly composed of arkosic sand which
has rock composition consisting of quartz (41.6%), feldspar (33.3%),
debris (19.2%), and remaining matrix (5.9% on average). The median
grain diameter is equal to about 0.42 mm (Luan, 2015). From an
analysis of log data, the net thickness ranges from about 80 to 95 m
(this is the total thickness of the interval with shale layers removed)
with average thickness equal to about 92 m. The Guantao Formation
sits at a depth between 530 and 670 m. At these depths, with a fracture
pressure gradient of about 20 kPa/m, the fracture pressure of the
formation ranges from about 11 to 13 MPa. From an analysis of core
data from the Guantao Formation, the reservoir has relatively high
porosity equal to 36.3% on average and high permeability which
averages about 5.5 Darcy. The average oil saturation in the reservoir
is equal to 66%. There are no gas zones adjacent to the oil column and
thus the remainder of the pore space is filled with water.
An analysis of the gamma ray logs reveals that the average shale
content, on a volumetric basis, is equal to 5.9%. Due to the relatively
low volume fraction of shale, the reservoir is weakly heterogeneous.
The core data also show that the ratio of the vertical and horizontal
permeability is high ranging from 0.7 to 0.9 (average value 0.77). At
initial conditions, the pressure of the Guantao Formation is equal to
6.0 MPa at a depth of about 600 m. Although the reservoir quality is
considered good, it is bounded at edge and top by water zones in the
started in the Liaohe oil field in 1995. At the start, the operator of the
Liaohe oil field initially tried to use Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage
(SAGD). The target for SAGD was the Xing VI unit of the S3 upper unit
and this was done in 1997 (Zhang et al., 2005). The S3 unit is a 60–
80 m thick oil sands interval located at average depth of 800 m with
comparable porosity, permeability, and oil saturation to that of the
Guantao Formation. The SAGD operation failed in 1998 due to the
inability of the gas lift system to produce oil effectively from the
formation and difficulties encountered with establishing thermal com-
munication between injection and production wells during the startup
operation of the SAGD well pairs (Zhang et al., 2005). Because the oil
interval between the injection and production wells was not mobilized,
depletion zones were not established between the wells when the wells
were converted into SAGD mode. This harmed the ability of the process
to grow chambers as more steam was injected into the formation and
consequently, very low oil rates were achieved.
After the failure of the SAGD operation, a CSS operation was started
in 2000 in the Guantao Formation by using a square pattern well
configuration with areal spacing equal to 4900 m2 (Yang, 2006). The
initial CSS operation that was used in the Guantao oil layer consisted of
23 vertical wells. By 2004, the overall recovery factor had reached
about 15% (Yang, 2006). A summary of the injection and production
field data for five of the CSS operation wells, representative of the
behavior of all vertical CSS wells, is listed in Table 1. Fig. 1 displays the
production rate profile from vertical wells between 2000 and 2004. The
production data reveal a cyclic overprint on the oil rate that persisted
throughout the operation. The data show that the wells were operated
with different numbers of cycles. For the majority of wells, the
cumulative steam injected (expressed as cold water equivalent) was
just over 30,000 m3. On average, the steam injection pressure, corre-
sponding saturation temperature, and quality was equal to 10,000 kPa,
311 °C, and 0.76, respectively. Despite similar amounts of steam
injected for most of the wells, the cumulative steam-to-oil ratio
(cSOR) varies from 1.63 m3/m3 up to 3.35 m3/m3 with the overall
average equal to 2.6 m3/m3. These cSORs imply emissions intensities
of 250–700 kgCO2/m3 oil produced (Gates and Larter, 2014). The
calendar day oil rate, CDOR, varies between 4.6 and 10.5 m3/day. A
comparison of injected steam and produced water reveal that most of
the wells produced about one-half of the steam that was injected with
the exception of Well 46.

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Liaohe Oil Field SIGD oil production and steam injection (expressed as cold water equivalent) data. On average, during the CSS preheat period prior to SIGD, the steam injection pressure, corresponding saturation temperature, and quality was
The total fluid produced to steam injected ratio (TFSR) lies between

m3/m3
equal to 12,000 kPa, 324 °C, and 0.76 for all wells, respectively. During the SIGD period, the steam injection pressure, corresponding saturation temperature, and quality was equal to 6500 kPa, 280 °C, and 0.9 for all wells, respectively.

TFSR,
0.78 and 1.12 m3/m3. The average value is equal to 0.98 m3/m3. For

0.81
the TFSRs lower than unity, this means that less liquid was being
CDOR, m3/ produced from the reservoir than the liquid equivalent of steam
injected. This implies that steam was being lost to the reservoir beyond

44.44

72.28

93.87

47.59
the stimulated zone. For the wells with TFSRs greater than unity, this
day

implies that more liquid was being produced from the reservoir than
was injected into the reservoir, which means that a vapor steam
m3/m3
cSOR,

chamber was growing within the formation as CSS proceeds. Since

4.49

the average is nearly equal to unity, this implies that on an overall

basis, the liquid produced is roughly equal to that injected (steam
expressed as a cold water equivalent).
Cumulative

water, m3
produced

234,054

363,768

527,001

205,874
Beyond 2004, a continuous steam injection gravity drainage process
using a combination of the vertical wells as injectors and new
horizontal wells as producers was implemented. This recovery process
we refer to as the steam-injection gravity drainage (SIGD) to distin-
produced oil,
Cumulative

guish it from classical SAGD operation where two horizontal wells are
146,654

190,566

used. The SIGD recovery process where steam is injected into the
82,605

83,145

vertical wells and fluids are produced through the horizontal wells is
m3

still currently in operation in the Guantao Formation. A summary of

Cumulative steam

the pre-SIGD (preheat period, described below) and SIGD operation

through vertical
(CWE) injected

data are listed in Table 2. To understand the production history, prior

to continuous steam and oil production, the horizontal wells were
2,259,742
wells, m3

stimulated by using CSS (started on about Day 1228 and lasted on

average about 360 days) to establish thermal communication between
the vertical wells (previously doing CSS) and the new horizontal wells;
Duration, days

this period is referred to as the pre-heat period. Two of the horizontal

SIGD Period

wells conducted 2 cycles whereas the other two did 3 cycles. During the
pre-heat period, on average, the steam injection pressure, correspond-
1859

2029

2030

1747

ing saturation temperature, and quality was equal to 12,000 kPa,

324 °C, and 0.76 for all wells, respectively. The cSOR after the pre-
m3/m3
TFSR,

heat period varies from about 3.43 m3/m3 up to 8.09 m3/m3 with the
0.20

0.46

0.62

0.36

average equal to 5.67 m3/m3. This implies emissions intensities from

750 to 1700 kgCO2/m3 produced oil during this period (Gates and
m3/day
CDOR,

Larter, 2014). A direct comparison of the original vertical well CSS

14.80

19.52
9.78

8.77

versus the performance of the horizontal wells during the pre-heat

period reveals that the vertical wells performed better than the
m3/m3
cSOR,

horizontal wells. However, the CDOR of the horizontal wells is higher

8.09

4.53

3.43

6.66

than that of the vertical wells: they vary between 8.77 and 19.52 m3/
day (this is expected given the increased contact the horizontal wells
have with the reservoir). During the pre-heat period, the TFSR has a
Cumulative

water, m3

range between 0.2 and 0.62 m3/m3, which suggests that the leakoff of
produced

steam from the wells is much greater than the amount of liquid
1614

6324

8406

4920

equivalent produced. For heating the formation, this may have been
beneficial since the injected steam and its condensate will convect heat
produced oil,

into the oil sand establishing a pre-heated zone around the wells.
Cumulative

The SIGD operation (after the preheat period) started on about Day
2612

5741

7574

3483

1588. Since it is not possible to allocate the steam directly to a single

m3

horizontal production well, the overall steam, cSOR, and TFSR are
reported for the field operation for the SIGD period are listed in
steam (CWE)

Table 2. During the SIGD period, the most productive wells are the
injected, m3
Cumulative

PING-11 and PING-12 wells which were also the wells that received the
21,134

26,002

25,946

23,205
CSS Preheating period prior to SIGD

greatest amount of steam and the highest productivity with the lowest
cSORs of the horizontal wells during the pre-heat period. During the
SIGD operation, the overall cSOR achieved a value equal to 4.49 m3/
Duration, days

m3. This implies emissions intensities equal to 900 kgCO2/m3 pro-

duced oil during SIGD (Gates and Larter, 2014). This was an
improvement over the pre-heat period but was not an improvement
267

388

388

397

over the vertical well CSS operation. Roughly about 59% of the injected
pre-heating

steam is produced back as water suggesting that a large fraction is lost

Number of

to the formation. Also, this is confirmed by the overall TFSR. The

cycles

CDORs for the horizontal wells are significantly larger than that of the
3

vertical wells during the CSS and the pre-heat operations demonstrat-
G-10

G-11

G-12

G-13
PIN-

PIN-

PIN-

PIN-

ing that during continuous steaming with continuous heating of the

Table 2

Well

Well

Well

Well

Well

formation, oil drainage is greatest.

Early cycle CSS operations result in SORs that tend to be lower than

270
Y. Bao et al.
Fig. 2. Lithofacies model with top and cross-section views.
that of continuous steam injection and production processes such as
SIGD. The main reason for this is that additional drive mechanisms
(formation recompaction, solution gas drive, steam flashing) are
harnessed for oil production in CSS than that in gravity drainage
dominated recovery processes.
4. Geological and reservoir models
To accurately describe characteristics of the reservoir including the
distributions of the lithofacies (rock types), geological and rock-fluid
properties of the lithofacies, and the thicknesses of the reservoir
intervals, a static geological model was first constructed. In the
geomodel constructed, three lithofacies are included: 1. sand, 2.
siltstone, and 3. shale. These lithofacies were determined from detailed
analysis of 34 vertical well and 4 horizontal well logs in the area of the
SIGD operation. The well log information used to construct the static
model consisted of neutron and density porosity logs, gamma ray logs,
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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 153 (2017) 268–282
and resistivity logs. In addition, well trajectory information was used to
place wells within the model domain. The geological model was
constructed in the PETREL geological modelling package
(Schlumberger, 2014). Fig. 2 displays views of the distributions of
the lithofacies in the geological model. The model shows interbedded
sand and siltstone intervals with relatively small layers of shale found
predominantly at the top of the domain. Based on the log data, the
Guantao oil layer was vertically subdivided into five zones with six
horizons labeled from the top to bottom as Zones 1–5; the most
productive oil zones are Zones 2–4. Fig. 3 displays a horizontal plane of
the geological model at depth 640 m presenting locations of vertical
and horizontal wells (vertical wells indicated by dots and well number
whereas horizontal wells indicated by black lines). Also shown in Fig. 3
is the porosity distribution and the location of two lines, AB and CD, for
log cross-sections displayed in Fig. 4. The porosity-permeability trans-
form, given by k(mD)=410451ϕ4.4108 (porosity expressed as fraction),
was constructed by using core data from 10 wells. Together with
Y. Bao et al. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 153 (2017) 268–282

Fig. 3. Vertical and horizontal well placements in the geological model (distance between vertical and horizontal wells is roughly equal to 35 m, and distance between horizontal wells is
roughly equal to 70 m). Locations of cross-sections of well locations for log cross-sections presented in Fig. 5 in horizontal plane of geological model (both Lines AB and CD consist of 5
wells). The colors of the grid blocks indicate the porosity distribution. The length and width of the domain shown are equal to 538 m and 462 m, respectively. The numbered dots
indicate the locations of the vertical wells whereas the black lines mark the roughly locations of the horizontal wells.

porosity logs, permeability pseudo-logs were created by using the
transform. The porosity, permeability, and water saturation distribu-
tions of the geological model are displayed in Fig. 5. The water
saturation along each of the logs was determined by using Archie's
equation with true water resistivity derived from the top water zone
(cementation factor 1.5 and saturation exponent 2). The variogram
parameters for geostatistical modelling, determined from well data and
listed in Table 3, were used to populate data in between wells by using
sequential Gaussian simulation. The geological model was converted
for use in the STARS™ thermal reservoir simulator (CMG, 2014). This
simulator solves the material and energy balances together with the
convective-diffusion equation (for each species) as well as phase
equilibrium (done by using K-values) in the context of multiphase flow
(oil, water, and gas) governed by Darcy's law and relative permeability
curves (CMG, 2014). The finite volume method is used to discretize the
partial differential equations.
The reference depth of the reservoir simulation model was set equal
to 610 m with pressure at 6000 kPa. The average vertical to horizontal
permeability ratio is equal to about 0.77. For the dilation model, the
Beattie et al. (1991) model was used.
In the reservoir model, the domain was discretized into a grid with
sixty-nine 5 m dimension cells in the X-direction by fifty-seven 5 m
dimension cells in the Y-direction and ninety-five 1.5 m dimension
cells in the vertical direction. The total number of cells in the geological
model is equal to 373,635. The top and bottom of the geological model
are located at depths equal to 524 and 682 m from the surface,
respectively.
5. History matched reservoir simulation model
To obtain a history match of the CSS and SIGD operations, we
imposed the same stimulation as was done in the field on the reservoir
model. In particular, the steam injection rates and pressure (and
corresponding saturation temperature), and quality for each injection
well were prescribed in the reservoir simulation model from the field
data. Also, the well pump rate is specified in the field operation, in
other words, the total liquid production rates for each production well
was constrained to the actual field values. The oil-water split of the
production wells was matched by adjusting the relative permeability
curves and in particular, the irreducible water saturation. In this case,
due to the injectivity of the model at initial time, a steam quality was
assigned for the CSS operation (at 0.76) and another value for the
continuous steam injection gravity drainage operation (at 0.9). The
simulation input parameters of the final history-matched model are
listed in Tables 4 and 5.
To conduct the history match, just over 30 runs were required (each
simulation run took about 24 h to run on a quad core personal
computer with 3.4 GHz processors). The match was done manually
and was complete when the simulation results, specifically, the
cumulative water and oil production volumes, displayed in Fig. 6, were
a reasonable match for the field data. The error of the cumulative oil
production between field history and simulation result is less than 2%.
The results reveal that the model is an excellent representation of the
field since the individual oil and produced water rates and cSOR
profiles match so closely as well as the data listed in Tables 1 and 2.

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Fig. 4. Log cross-sections AB and CD as defined in figure. I and Vdi represent the top and bottom horizons of the Guantao Formation. Zones 2, 3, and 4 are the most productive zones
(between horizons II and V). In the first log track, the red curve represents the caliper log; the black curve is the Spontaneous Potential log. In the second log track, the purple and blue
curves are neutron porosity and absolute permeability (obtained from porosity-permeability transform, shown in Fig. 6), respectively. (For interpretation of the references to color in this
figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Even though the overall field results are well matched, the results
for individual wells are variable. There are examples where the wells
are well matched and others where the match is reasonable. For
example, Fig. 7 shows the rate matches for two wells; one with a good
match and another with a reasonable match. The key observation of the
matches is that the simulation model re-creates a good representation
of the reservoir response to steam injection. Given the uncertainty of
the reservoir properties and complexity of the reservoir itself, the
match achieved is considered to be reasonable and the model is
sufficient to evaluate both the CSS and SIGD operations.
6. Results and discussion
Fig. 8 displays the initial oil saturation distribution at the initial

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Fig. 5. (a) Porosity (average value is 28%), (b) permeability (average values in shale, siltstone, and sand are 5, 200, and 10,000 mD, respectively), and (c) water saturation (average value
is 33%) distributions of the geological model. The top and bottom of the reservoir model is 524 m and 682 m below surface, respectively.

time. Fig. 9 shows the oil saturation initially and horizontal and vertical
cross-section views, respectively, of it at the end of the vertical CSS
operation. Due to the limited sweep efficiency of CSS, the oil saturation
distribution within the reservoir is not uniform with lean oil regions
surrounding the vertical CSS wells and rich oil regions remaining
within the reservoir in between the wells. Fig. 9 reveals that the
depleted zone in the reservoirs grow to 600 and 650 m elevation by the
end of the CSS operation. The variability of the chamber heights
reflects the heterogeneity of the formation.
Fig. 10 displays horizontal and vertical cross-sections of the oil
saturation distribution in the reservoir after six years of SIGD. The
results show that the depleted oil saturation zones in the reservoir are
much more extensive than that was achieved after the CSS operation.
After six years of SIGD operation, the depletion zones are largely
connected although horizontal Wells PING-11 and PING-13 have poor
conformance with just over half of their lengths still surrounded by oil
rich reservoir. This suggests that after a steam flow path is established
from the vertical injection wells to the horizontal production wells, then
the flow continues along this path with little transverse extension of the
depletion chamber into cold reservoir. This issue is reinforced due to
reservoir heterogeneity. After six years of the SIGD operation, the oil
saturation distribution shown in Fig. 10 and a comparison with the oil
saturation distribution displayed in Fig. 9 reveals that the depletion
chambers have grown significantly under gravity drainage. Also, the

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Table 3
Parameters of the variograms for populating the porosity, horizontal permeability, and water saturation distributions (directions, 0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees represent North, East,
South, and West directions, respectively). Each zone is defined in Fig. 5.

Zone Variogram Nugget Major Minor Major Minor

model direction, direction, range, range, m
deg deg m

Porosity variogram parameters for each zone

1 Spherical 0.072 276.7 186.7 181.4 181.3
2 Spherical 0.083 292.7 202.7 70.80 41.70
3 Spherical 0.004 286.1 196.1 59.04 33.07
4 Spherical 0.0 278.5 188.5 145.2 106.6
5 Spherical 0.085 282.6 192.6 120.5 68.14

Horizontal permeability variogram parameters for each zone

1 Spherical 0.101 280.6 190.6 190.9 191.6
2 Spherical 0.071 286.7 196.7 95.69 76.52
3 Spherical 0.005 285.4 195.4 64.59 62.85
4 Spherical 0.002 280.9 190.9 180.8 54.82
5 Spherical 0.051 283.1 193.1 168.8 45.90

Water saturation variogram parameters for each zone

1 Spherical 0.047 275.9 185.9 226.8 221.5
2 Spherical 0.015 289.2 199.2 141.2 107.4
3 Spherical 0.0 284.8 194.8 89.54 68.57
4 Spherical 0.0 283.4 193.4 203.9 139.1
5 Spherical 0.022 291.6 201.6 164.6 71.53

Table 4
Key reservoir simulation input parameters.

Parameters Value

Initial reservoir temperature, °C 32

Initial reservoir pressure (at 600 m), kPa 6000
Depth of top of reservoir, m 600
Average kv/kh 0.7
Rock thermal conductivity, J/m-day-°C 9.64×104
Rock thermal capacity, J/m3-°C 1.5×106
Water thermal conductivity, J/m-day-°C 5.35×104
Oil thermal conductivity, J/m-day-°C 1.15×104
Solution gas-to-oil ratio, m3/m3 4.45
Solution gas (methane) mole fraction in oil phase 0.1
Bitumen mole fraction in oil phase 0.9
kv 4
kv1 T + k
kv1=5.45×105 kPa
Methane K-value correlation, K −value = e v5 kv4=879.84 °C
P
(CMG, 2014) kv5 =265.99 °C
Heavy oil viscosity correlation (in cP, temperature in ln ln (μ+0.7)=24.4184
°C) –3.7874 ln (T+273.15)

Table 5
History matched oil-water and oil-gas relative permeability curves.

Sw krw krow So krg krog

0.25 0.00000 0.99027 0.15 1.0000 0.0000

0.28 0.00001 0.94115 0.2 0.7978 0.0001
0.31 0.00007 0.88810 0.25 0.6267 0.0007
0.34 0.00029 0.54229 0.3 0.4835 0.0029
0.38 0.00078 0.36535 0.35 0.3654 0.0078
0.41 0.00171 0.26944 0.4 0.2694 0.0171
0.44 0.00323 0.19301 0.45 0.1930 0.0323
0.47 0.00554 0.13348 0.5 0.1335 0.0554
0.50 0.00884 0.08839 0.55 0.0884 0.0884
0.53 0.01335 0.05539 0.6 0.0554 0.1335
0.56 0.01930 0.03229 0.65 0.0323 0.1930
0.59 0.02694 0.01706 0.7 0.0171 0.2694
0.63 0.03654 0.00781 0.75 0.0078 0.3654
0.66 0.04835 0.00285 0.8 0.0029 0.4835
0.69 0.06267 0.00069 0.85 0.0007 0.6267
0.72 0.07978 0.00006 0.9 0.0001 0.7978
0.75 0.10000 0.00000 0.95 0 0.99027

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Y. Bao et al. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 153 (2017) 268–282

Fig. 6. Comparison of cumulative oil production, cumulative steam injection, and cumulative liquid production between field data and simulation results. The CSS operation lasted up to
Day 1228 and the SIGD operation started about Day 1588 (the period between was the preheat to the SIGD operation).

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Y. Bao et al.
Fig. 7. Oil rate match for a Well 45-p (top) and Well 41-p (bottom).
chamber heights have grown substantially with some of the chambers
having reached the top of the oil column.
Figs. 11 and 12 display areal views of the temperature distributions
at 630 m depth at the end of the CSS operation and at the end of SIGD,
respectively. Figs. 13 and 14 show the temperature distributions in the
vertical plane containing the PING-11 horizontal well at the end of the
CSS operation and at the end of SIGD. The results show that after the
end of the CSS operation, there are hot zones around the vertical wells
but the hot regions are largely unconnected. The temperatures in the
region of the horizontal well are elevated but are substantially lower
than that of the zones surrounding the wells. By the end of SIGD,
greater amounts of the reservoir are now heated although ‘cold’ spots
still remain along the horizontal well.
The results show that SIGD is effective at growing depletion
chambers within the reservoir consistent with the results from Miller
et al. (1991) and Stark (2011). The results from the history-matched
simulation conducted here show that after the vertical well CSS
operation, the steam chambers are largely separated from each other
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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 153 (2017) 268–282
with limited merging of the chambers. By the end of SIGD, the
chambers are well connected and a large fraction of the chambers
have reached steam temperature. One advantage of transitioning a CSS
operation to SIGD is that the reservoir around the wells is heated with
limited connectivity between wells during the CSS operation. This
means that when the system is converted to SIGD, there are semi-
established flow zones for the steam to move through. This enables a
steam flood drive mechanism to move mobilized oil to production
wells. Another advantage of infill horizontal production wells in
between vertical wells is the reduced costs relative to that of putting
in full conventional SAGD wellpairs. Another advantage of vertical well
CSS operation followed by SIGD is that the degree of control in the
reservoir by using vertical well injectors: the steam injection pressure
and rate can be controlled in each vertical well to achieve improved
steam conformance along horizontal production wells. In this manner,
the vertical wells are acting as equivalent or better than a horizontal
steam injector with interval control.
The injected enthalpy, produced enthalpy (ignoring the chemical
Y. Bao et al.
Fig. 8. Original oil saturation distribution (line AB is the location of the cross-section in the lower image). Lower image has aspect ratio 1:1.
energy in the produced oil and solution gas), and average reservoir
temperature is plotted in Fig. 15. The results show that during CSS (up
to Day 1500), the injected and produced enthalpies are similar whereas
when SIGD begins, the injected enthalpy far exceeds the produced
enthalpy. The thermal efficiency of the process during the CSS period is
relatively high – the chambers are small and during each production
period, the system surrounding each well undergoes a blowdown event
where energy is recovered from the reservoir. During SIGD, the
systems remains at elevated pressure and since there are no blowdown
events (as in CSS), then energy recovery is reduced. As the average
reservoir temperature in the reservoir shows, it increases more
significantly when SIGD starts which means that more of the injected
energy is being stored in the reservoir rather than being produced from
it. With respect to the energy intensity of the recovery processes, the
data show that in the CSS period, the net energy required per cubic
meter of oil produced is equal to about 3.6 GJ/m3. In the SIGD period,
this rises to 9.0 GJ/m3. This reveals that the initial CSS operation is
more energy efficient than SIGD. This is because more energy is
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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 153 (2017) 268–282
produced back during the blowdown events that occur during each
production period of the cycles during CSS.
7. Conclusions
A history-matched reservoir simulation model of the Liaohe
Guantao heavy oil layer has been constructed. The static model was
derived from log and well trajectory data. The model was tuned to
match injection and production data from CSS and SIGD operations.
The conclusions from this study are as follows:
1. CSS is effective at initiating recovery from the oil sands reservoir
considered here. Given the distance between wells and the viscosity
of the oil at original reservoir conditions, it would be difficult to
initiate a steam flood within the reservoir. After connections
between the chambers from the CSS operation are established,
SIGD can be started.
2. The field data from the Liaohe Guantao extra heavy oil reservoir
Y. Bao et al.
Fig. 9. Oil saturation at end of CSS operation (line AB is the location of the cross-section in the lower image). Lower image has aspect ratio 1:1.
demonstrates that a vertical well injection – horizontal well produc-
tion steam injection gravity drainage (SIGD) process is an effective
follow-up process to vertical well cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) with
respect to oil recovery. With respect to thermal efficiency (measured
by the steam-to-oil ratio), the SIGD process as conducted in Liaohe
is about 12% less thermally efficient than CSS. This implies that the
CO2 emissions intensity (kgCO2/m3 produced oil) is slightly higher
in SIGD than that of CSS.
3. The net energy consumed per unit volume oil produced in SIGD is
several times that of CSS. This is because in each CSS cycle, a large
fraction of the energy injected is harvested back in each cycle during
production (essentially a blowdown event). Since SIGD operates
under continuous injection and production, energy is not as readily
produced from the reservoir. Perhaps a blowdown event should be
added to the SIGD process.
4. The reservoir simulation match of the field data is reasonable and its
results confirm the outcomes of the field operation. The steam
chambers observed in the model reveal that the steam chambers
created during CSS are extended by using SIGD. However, the steam
conformance along the horizontal wells is non-uniform reflecting the
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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 153 (2017) 268–282
heterogeneity of the reservoir and initial pattern of the vertical CSS
wells.
5. The use of vertical steam injection wells (former CSS wells) in
combination with horizontal production wells operated in a steam
injection gravity drainage mode illustrates that multiple recovery
processes are required at different stages of the overall recovery
operation to maximize the recovery factor and production rates at
minimal energy intensity.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge support from the Chinese National
Petroleum Corporation in the form of data and guidance on the
Liaohe oil field, funding from Carbon Management Canada (Project
A03) and the National Science and Engineering Research Council of
Canada (RGPAS/477902-2015), and Schlumberger for its Petrel geo-
logical modelling software and CMG for its STARS™ thermal reservoir
simulator.
Y. Bao et al. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 153 (2017) 268–282

Fig. 10. Oil saturation at end of SIGD operation (line AB is the location of the cross-section in the lower image). Lower image has aspect ratio 1:1.

Fig. 11. Temperature profile of CSS operation Years 1–4 (aspect ratio 1:1). Years 5 and 6 are during which the pre-heat period was conducted on the horizontal wells. Line AB is the
location of the cross-sections presented in Figs. 13 and 14.

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Fig. 12. Temperature distributions at the end of each year during SIGD operation (aspect ratio 1:1).

Fig. 13. Temperature distribution along row of vertical wells at the end of CSS operation (aspect ratio 1:1). Line AB is defined in Fig. 11. The position of the horizontal well is illustrated
in the image.

Fig. 14. Temperature distribution along row of vertical wells at the end of SIGD operation (aspect ratio 1:1). Line AB is defined in Fig. 11. The position of the horizontal well is
illustrated in the image.

Fig. 15. Cumulative enthalpy injection, production and average temperature within reservoir.

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Y. Bao et al.
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