SPE 69690
SAGD Performance Optimization Through Numerical Simulations: Methodology and
Field Case Example
P. Egermann, IFP, G. Renard, IFP, and E. Delamaide IFP Technologies (Canada) Inc
Copyright 2001, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc.
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2001 SPE International Thermal Operations
and Heavy Oil Symposium held in Porlamar, Margarita Island, Venezuela, 12-14 March 2001.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE Program Committee following review of
information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper, as
presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to
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Abstract
SAGD is a very promising recovery process to produce heavy
oils and bitumen resources. The method ensures both a stable
displacement of steam and economical rates by using gravity
as the driving force and a pair of horizontal wells for
injection/production. After several years of small scale field
tests (pilots), the method is now considered as mature and
large scale projects are scheduled in a near future (in Canada
for instance). Nevertheless, both technical and economical
success of the process require a satisfactory development of
the steam chamber, which can be achieved by well monitoring
(i.e. steam trap control).
This paper presents a general methodology based on
numerical investigations to obtain and maintain an optimized
development of the chamber throughout the production life of
the wellpair. First, the methodology is explained on a
synthetic case and applied to a real field case example. Field
data are first history matched with the model and then the
proposed approach is used to evaluate how the oil production
could have been enhanced and optimized further.
It is shown that an optimized steam chamber development is
obtained by adjusting the steam injection rate to the potential
of the reservoir (fluids and geology) and by monitoring the
production rate during the process/operations to keep the
steam chamber as large as possible but away enough from the
production well to prevent any steam breakthrough. The
results are in good agreement compared with Butler's
analytical model (oil rate and steam chamber shape). A very
good history match is obtained in the field case example. The
proposed methodology shows that oil production rate can be
doubled when injection/production rates are adapted to the
SAGD reservoir potential.
Introduction
SAGD principle
In one decade, SAGD process has turned out to be the most
promising strategies to develop huge heavy oil and bitumen
accumulations [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Like the conventional thermal
processes (steam stimulation, steam injection,…) [1,7], this
method aims at reducing oil viscosity by increasing the
temperature. In the SAGD process, this is achieved by drilling
a pair of horizontal wells. Typically, the two horizontal drains
are located at short distance one above the other (Figure 1).
Steam is injected into the upper well and hot fluids are
produced from the lower well. This progressively creates a
chamber, which develops by condensing steam at the chamber
boundary and giving latent energy to the surrounding
reservoir. Heated oil and water are drained by gravity along
the chamber walls towards the production well [1].
The strength of SAGD is to merge a stable displacement of oil
by steam with high production rates. The first feature is
achieved by using gravity drainage as the only driving force.
Whereas gravity drainage gives rise to poor production rates
with conventional wells, some good productivity can be
obtained with the use of horizontal wells. SAGD process
obviously benefits from the recent and impressive progress
drilling technology and development of specific tools enable
to make possible accurate well pair placement and roughly
constant inter-well spacing [8].
Stable gravity displacement is particularly important to reach
a favorable energy balance. In SAGD, the heated oil remains
always in contact with the heated region, as it gets drained
along the sidewalls of the steam chamber [9]. Thus, energy
losses from heated oil, which has not been produced, are
minimized. The energy balance is commonly estimated by the
Steam Oil Ratio (SOR), which represents the volume of steam
necessary to produce one volume unity of oil. On the
economic standpoint, SAGD is thus very interesting because
2 P. EGERMANN, G. RENARD, E. DELAMAIDE
it combines high flow rates due to horizontal wells and
favorable energy balance [3]. Moreover, expected oil recovery
is in the range of 50 to 75 %.
Steam trap control
However, to be efficient, SAGD requires a production
monitoring to systematically adjust well parameters in order
to optimize the steam chamber development during the
operating life of the pair. The main problem is that the steam
chamber capacity to drain heated bitumen downwards
continuously changes and so is the optimum set of parameters
to pilot the pair.
When producing rate is too high, heated liquid level goes
down to the producer because gravity drainage can not
compensate for the production. If this is not controlled, steam
breakthrough happens and leads to a severe shut down of the
pair with risks of completion damages due to the sand.
When producing rate is too low, liquid level goes up. Gravity
drainage from the chamber walls becomes impossible in the
lower part of the chamber. It affects the overall shape of the
chamber, which tends to develop only in the upper part of the
reservoir. This reduces the overall drainage ability of the
chamber and worsens the energy balance since unproduced
heated fluids have to be kept hot.
Monitoring is then a concern of primary importance because
it directly impacts directly the instantaneous production rate
but also the drainage potential of the well pair on the long
term. This procedure was first introduced by Edmunds as
“ steam trap control ” [10].
This paper presents a general methodology to obtain and
maintain an optimized development of the chamber
throughout the production life of the well pair. First, the
methodology is explained on a synthetic case showing the
benefit of optimization on the production performance. Then,
the methodology is applied to a real field case example. Field
data are first history matched with the model and then the
proposed approach is used to evaluate how the oil production
could have been enhanced and optimized further.
Optimization principle
Presentation of the case
Reservoir simulation software
In this part, the proposed methodology to optimize the SAGD
performance is presented and applied on a synthetic case by
the way of numerical simulations. All were conducted with
ATHOS, the IFP group reservoir simulation software. This
multipurpose software can simulate various reservoir recovery
processes (waterflood, gasflood, WAG, polymer, fractures,
chemical injections, thermal transfer,..). The thermal option
enables to fully take into account for thermal transfers into the
reservoir and to handle steam injection [11].
SPE 69690
Reservoir properties
We considered the ideal case of a homogeneous reservoir with
no bottom active aquifer. Main features are gathered on Table
1. Oil viscosity versus temperature was derived from a
correlation from Svrcek and Mehrotra [1].
Log Log ( µ + 0. 7 ) = b ' −3. 63029 × Log ( T + 273)
, where b’ is a constant for a given oil. An example of the
viscosity as a function of temperature is given in Figure 2 and
Table 2 . Viscosity value decreases to 1.8 cP for the
vaporization temperature of water (270 °C) at the initial
pressure of the reservoir [12].
Gridding
As the reservoir is assumed homogeneous, the number of
active cells can be reduced by symmetry along the vertical
axis formed by the two wells (Figure 3). The size of the grid
cells in the X direction was taken equal to 1 meter near the
wells and 3 meters farther away. As the distance between the
two horizontal wells was supposed to be constant, only one
cell was used to describe the well length in the Y direction.
The size of this cell was taken equal to 500 meters. This value
seems to be representative of the average well length chosen
in most of the SAGD projects. Vertical gridding is
homogeneous with 40 cells (cell thickness equal to 0.5 meter).
The general view of the corresponding grid is displayed in
Figure 3.
Need for an optimization procedure
In this paper, we restrict ourselves to the reservoir aspect of
the accurate monitoring required to insure optimized
development of the steam chamber. We do not consider any
coupling with the wellbore although it has been proved to
impact the operating conditions of the well pair [13,14,15].
Ideally, all the heated fluids drained downwards should be
produced:
Ø to avoid accumulation and heat losses in the bottom part
of the chamber.
Ø to avoid steam breakthrough at the producer.
This requires a careful control of the rate of production as
well as the injection rate. Indeed, due to the small distance
between the wells, any fluctuation in the growing of the vapor
chamber or in the production rate of the fluids would have a
dramatic impact on the process efficiency. Hence, two
constraints have to be fixed to solve the problem. The first one
is to evaluate the adapted injection rate to develop the
chamber, and the second one is to implement a well
monitoring to maintain the steam chamber border at some
distance from the producer.
Definition of the well rates
By definition, the theoretical rate calculated using the Butler
method corresponds exactly to the rate of oil drained along
the sidewalls of the steam chamber. This value can then be
considered as a good estimate of the rate that is reached when
the chamber is fully developed.
SPE 69690 SAGD PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION THROUGH NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS: METHODOLOGY AND FIELD CASE EXAMPLE
1.5K gα ∆S o h
Q bottom = 2L Eq 1
mγ s
oil
In our case, this gives an oil rate equal to 115 m3/d for half of
the domain (simulation area). K represents the effective oil
permeability and was taken equal to 0.5 Darcy to take into
account relative permeability effect (Kro equal to 0.5 if vertical
permeability is the reference). As this value is hardly
predictable, it constitutes the main uncertainty in the
approximation. Most of SAGD projects lead to instantaneous
WOR in the range of 1.5 to 2. The following formulae give
the overall produced rate at the surface and bottom conditions
bottom
Q oil Q bottom  1 WOR 
Q surface = + water = Q bottom  +  Eq 2
B w 
total oil
Bo Bw  Bo
Q bottom
total = Q oil
bottom
(1 + WOR ) Eq 3
3 the interwell region by thermal conduction. Practically, this is
Eq 2 gives a value comprised between 225 and 270 m /d at
surface conditions for half of the domain.
As there is no aquifer support, pressure maintenance is
insured when steam injection rate compensates for water
production. As oil is replaced by steam, it requires injection of
a small additional volume of water is required. Then, the
injection rate at surface conditions should be approximately
equal to:
bottom
Q oil
injection ≈
Q surface (WOR ) Eq 4
Bw
The corresponding injecting rate must be then ranked
between 130 and 173 m3/d at surface conditions for half the
domain.
Production monitoring between the wells
Calculated flowrates are necessary to insure the reservoir
pressure maintenance and production of the heated fluids at
the maximum capacity of the reservoir. However, they fail to
prevent well impairment during the overall lifetime of the
wellpair. By operating near the optimized point, risks are
higher to produce steam from the producer since the chamber
is closer to it.
ATHOS reservoir code enables to avoid this kind of
problem through monitoring commands. Those commands
permit to automatically reassign production or injection rate
depending on the evolution of a control parameter
representative to the distance between the chamber and the
producer. This is similar to the « steam trap control »
principle detailed by Edmunds [10]. Through numerical
simulations, Edmunds showed that the temperature difference
(DT) between the injection and the production wells is a good
control parameter. In the present case, we considered that the
steam generation capacity is defined by the size of the surface
facilities so that injection rate is kept fixed. Hence, the control
implemented on the producer flowrate depends on the value
of the temperature difference. When DT is higher than a
DTmax value, the production rate is increased gradually to a
value Qmax. When DT is lower than a DTmin value, the rate
3
is decreased gradually to a value Qmin. On the field, these
continuous changes in rates are controlled through the choke
of the producer.
Simulations without optimization
In this part, we present results of a simulation performed
without optimization procedure. The injection rate was fixed
at 75 m3/d, which is lower than the actual potential of the
reservoir (at least 150 m3/d from our estimation).
Preheating period
To be initiated, SAGD process requires that a certain
hydraulic communication is established between the two
wells. Depending on the reservoir and oil properties, this
communication can be obtained either by operating the
wellpair using some Huff & Puff method [16], or by heating
achieved by circulating steam into the completions of the two
wells. In the frame of the simulations presented here, we used
the second option with a steam circulation period of 150 days.
This duration was not optimized and could have been reduced
as shown in Figure 4. As expected, increase of temperature is
higher between the two wells and does not vary so much after
100 days.
Production period
The evolution of water and oil rates is plotted in Figure 5
(rates are related to the simulation area i.e. half the domain).
Oil rate first increases when the wellpair starts producing and
reaches a maximum value. For the longer times, a gradual
decrease of the oil rate is observed whereas water rate
increases at the same time. Steam injection rate is stable and
equal to the fixed value of 75 m3/d.
Evolution of SOR (Steam Oil Ratio) is given in Figure 6 (in
the calculation of this SOR, the steam volumes used during
the preheating period are not accounted for). The
instantaneous SOR increases rapidly up to a value of 2.5 and
then decreases down to around 1.8. For the longer times, a
slight increase is observed which means that energy balance
degrades due to heat losses.
Evolutions of Bottom Hole Temperature (BHT) show that
stabilization is reached rapidly both at the injector and the
producer. The control parameter DT gets stabilized around
57°C (Figure 7). By comparison with simulations from
Edmunds [10], this high value means that the steam chamber
interface is far away from the producer. This behavior is
confirmed by gas saturation profiles in the reservoir at 500
and 1000 days (Figure 8). The resulting steam chamber is
restricted to the upper part of the reservoir. As expected, we
obtain a very unfavorable case of SAGD where heated fluids
accumulate at the bottom part of the chamber as shown on
Figure 9 with temperature profiles. The resulting steam
chamber shape is then very different to the one given by
Butler’s model. Due to the difference between the production
rate and the drainage capacity of the reservoir, steam chamber
4 P. EGERMANN, G. RENARD, E. DELAMAIDE
shape degrades to fit the low rate required (smaller chamber
due to unproduced heated fluids, lower slope of its walls).
Simulations with optimization
The base case is now simulated with the optimization
procedure described in the previous section. The opening of
the wells to the nominal regime is established progressively in
70 days.
Qualitatively, the observed steam chamber shape is more
triangular (Figure 10) and closer to what can be expected
from Butler's model. The frontier of the chamber remains
between the two wells, which means that there are no
unproduced heated fluids. The four pictures of Figure 11
enable to follow the steam chamber development from the
rising period to the lateral extension regime. The impact of
the regulation is particularly sensitive on the BHT since
temperature is our control parameter. Figure 12 shows that
DT is maintained at around 25°C all along the simulation.
Compared to the non-optimized simulation, the general
evolution of flow rates is the same except for the water rate. A
decrease is observed for the longer times. Hence, monotony of
the water and oil rates is the same when the process is
optimized. This behavior can be attributed to the non-storage
of unproduced fluids at the basis of the steam chamber. When
retention time of heated fluids into the steam chamber
increases, heat has to be provided to maintain their
temperature. Practically, this is achieved by the condensation
of a fraction of the injected steam. This lost steam is produced
rapidly and is not used to develop the chamber. It makes the
bottom of the steam chamber going up which increases the
part of injected steam used to maintain the temperature. This
phenomenon coupled with gravity segregation of oil and
water leads to a gradual increase of the water rate.
Compared to the first simulation, oil rate is multiplied by a
factor two (Figure 13). The steam injection rate follows the
same evolution as the produced water rate, which shows that
the injected water is entirely recycled by the producer after
steam condensation. The phenomenon of condensation can be
observed by plotting the water saturation profiles (Figure 14).
In the virgin area, Sw is equal to Swi (0.15). At the border of
the chamber, Sw gets through a maximum around 0.45.
All these indications out into evidence a better development of
the steam chamber in terms of energy balance as showed by
Figure 15. A significant decrease of the cumulative SOR is
obtained in the optimized case. Due to the monitoring control
and the adapted injection rate, heated fluids do not stay
unproduced in the bottom part of the chamber. That helps
lateral development of the chamber, decreases the WOR and
heat losses and favors the SOR.
Comparison with the complete model from Butler is provided
on Figure 16. Details on the modelling approach can be found
in reference 1. The best fit was obtained for a rising
parameter equal to 2.6 and oil permeability equal to 0.7
Darcy.
SPE 69690
Field Case application
In that part, the previous methodology is illustrated by an
application on a SAGD field case with real data [16].
Reservoir parameters of the Celtic field
Following the 1996 success of two Single Well SAGD wells
in the Celtic field, Saskatchewan, Mobil Oil Canada piloted a
Dual Well SAGD well pair in 1997 [16]. The well pair was
located in the Sparky-General Petroleum « channel » sand
with a net pay thickness of about 20 m and a dead oil
viscosity of about 15,000 cP. Table 3 lists key reservoir
parameters that have been confirmed from the SAGD pilot.
The reservoir is quite homogeneous without any shale
barriers. The oil is heavy, however light enough to allow a
start-up using and Huff & Puff type procedure. In the present
study, a preheating phase has been simulated through heat
conduction of the two wells.
From the information given in the literature, it is clear that a
Black-Oil history match simulation can be done. Oil viscosity
versus temperature has been derived using the Svrcek and
Mehrotra correlation. At steam temperature, i.e. 240° C, oil
viscosity is close to 3 cP. A good drainage can therefore be
anticipated.
The injection-production history shown on Figure 17 has been
derived from Fig. 11 of the original paper. In a first step it is
simulated straightforward without implementation of any well
monitoring option.
Prior analysis of field data
From the data given in the article, it is possible to anticipate
what will be the shape of the steam chamber :
Ø A temperature differential of about 60° C between the
injection and production wells is indicated. It suggests a
relatively wide distance between the steam chamber and
the producer.
Ø Production curves of Figure 17 are similar to those
obtained when simulating without adapted production
schedule. Instead of the same monotony, oil and water
rates do not vary in the same way at long times. This
expresses a degradation of the Water Oil Ratio.
Therefore, an accumulation of hot fluids is predictable at the
basis of the steam chamber, just above the production well.
Results of the history match
Figure 18 shows that the match is pretty good between field
observed flow rates at the producer (oil and water) and
simulated ones. The temperatures at the two wells and
corresponding temperature differential are plotted in Figure
19. Values are similar to what has been observed on the field,
60° C. The shape of the steam chamber shown on Figure 20
confirms the conclusions that have already been drawn
concerning the accumulation of hot fluids at the basis of the
steam chamber. We emphasise that these results have been
obtained without any particular adjustment of the simulated
data.
SPE 69690 SAGD PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION THROUGH NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS: METHODOLOGY AND FIELD CASE EXAMPLE
Production Optimisation
The optimisation procedure described in the first part of this
paper is now applied to data from the Celtic field.
The maximum oil rate now is in the order of 200 m3/d for the
whole domain. Temperature monitoring between the injector
(steam temperature) and the producer is set between 20 and
35° C. Results in terms of oil and water rates are shown in
Figure 21. They indicate that a significant incremental
production is available, around 100%, when reducing the
temperature differential between the two wells.
The effect of an optimisation is also very sensitive when
looking at the levels of Bottom Hole Temperature (BHT) and
Cumulative SOR (Figure 22 and Figure 23). The overall
energy balance therefore is enhanced. The increase in
production drawdown allowed by a significant decrease in
temperature differential between the two wells, 30° C instead
of 60° C, leads to a better development of the steam chamber.
As indicated in Figure 24, the shape of the chamber is more
conventional.
Fit with Butler’s model
Figure 25 shows the comparison with the complete Butler
model. The value of the m parameter is 2,73 in this case. The
best fit is obtained with a rising coefficient equal to 2,4 and a
relative permeability to oil of 0,75 when vertical permeability
is used as reference.
Conclusions
It is shown that optimized steam chamber development is
obtained by (1) adjusting steam injection rate to the potential
of the reservoir and by (2) monitoring the production rate
during the process/operations. The results are in good
agreement compared with Butler's analytical model (oil rate
and steam chamber shape). A very good history match is
obtained in the field case example. The proposed
methodology shows that roughly 100 % incremental oil
production can be expected when injection/production rates
are adapted to the SAGD reservoir potential.
Nomenclature
BHT : Bottom Hole Temperature
Bo : Formation Volume Factor for oil
Bw : Formation Volume Factor for water
DT : Control parameter (temperature difference between
injector and producer)
Dtmax : Maximum value of the control parameter
Dtmin : Minimum value of the control parameter
Qmin : Lower constraint of oil flow rate for monitoring
Qmax : Upper constraint of oil flow rate for monitoring
WOR : Water Oil Ratio
K : permeability (in fact oil relative permeability)
α : thermal diffusivity
5
∆So : moveable oil saturation
γs : oil viscosity at steam temperature
m : parameter which depends on viscosity evolution
REFERENCES
1 Butler R.M. :"Thermal recovery of oil and bitumen",
GravDrain's Blackbook, Feb 1998.
2 Butler R.M.:"SAGD comes of age", JCPT,
July,1998,.Volume 37, n°7.
3 Edmunds N.:"On the difficult birth of SAGD", JCPT,
January 1999, Volume 38, n°1.
4 Nasr T.N., Golbeck H., Korpany G., Pierce G. :"SAGD
operating strategies", SPE n°50411, Calgary, 1-4 Nov
1998.
5 Good K., Scott J.D., Luhning R.W., :"Review and
assessment of SAGD applications in Canada", 14th Wold
Petroleum Congress, 1994.
6 Redford D.A., Luhning R.W. :" In situ recovery from the
Athabasca oil sands - past experience and future
potential", CIM n° 95-24, Banff, 14-17 May 1995.
7 Prats M. :"Thermal recovery", SPE Monograph Volume 7,
1982.
8 Grills T. :" Emerging technologies for SAGD drilling and
production", JCPT, May 1998, Volume 37, n°5.
9 Butler R.M.:"SAGD: concept, development, performance
and future",JCPT, February 1994, Volume 33, n°2.
10 Edmunds N.R.:"Investigation of SAGD steam trap control
in two and three dimensions",SPE n°50413,Calgary,
Canada, 1-4 November,1998.
11 Latil M. :"Modélisation des procédés thermiques dans
ATHOS", IFP internal report 42821, Feb 1996.
12 Burger J., Combarnous M. :" Les méthodes thermiques de
production des hydrocarbures", Revue de l'Institut
Français du Pétrole, Juillet-Août 1975.
13 Edmunds N.R., Good W.K. :" The nature and control of
geyser phenomena in thermal production riser", CIM
paper n° 92-03, Calgary, June 7-10, 1992.
14 Butler R.M., Bharatha S., Yee C.T. :" Natural and gas-lift
in SAGD production wells", CIM paper n° 97-111,
Calgary, June 8-11, 1991.
15 Edmunds N.R., Gittins S.D.:"Effective SAGD to long well
pairs",CIM/AOSTRA 91-65,Banff, Canada, 21-24
April,1991.
16 M. Saltuklaroglu et al :"Mobil's SAGD experience at
Celtic, Saskatchewan", JCPT, April 2000, Volume 39,
n°4.
 Synthetic case Overburden
Reference depth m 725
Initial pressure Pi bar 50
Initial temperature Ti °C 27 Steam
chamber Oil gravity
Reservoir thickness m 20 drainage from the
Horizontal permeability D 2 chamber boundary

Vertical permeability D 1
Porosity % 35 Mobile fluids
Viscosity at Ti cP 5000
Table 1: Reservoir properties
Underburden
Temperature °C Oil viscosity cP
27 5000 Legend: Producer
Injector
66 242
121 23
177 6.4
232 2.9 Figure 1: SAGD principle
282 1.8
316 1.4
1.E+04
Table 2: Viscosity evolution with temperature
1.E+03
Depth m 490
Net pay m 20
Porosity % 33 Viscosity cP 1.E+02
Oil saturation % 80
Gravity API 12° 1.E+01
Initial Reservoir Pressure KPa 2,900
Initial reservoir Temperature °C 24°C @ 490 m
1.E+00
Horizontal Permeability D 7 (4)
Vertical Permeability D 1
Oil Viscosity @ 24° C cP 12 500 1.E-01
Bottom Water Thickness Normally zero 0 200 400 600
Temperature °c
Table 3: Typical reservoir parameters (Celtic field)

Figure 2: Oil viscosity versus temperature

274°C 250°C 225°C 200°C

175°C 150°C 125°C 27°C

Table 4: Temperature scale Injector

Producer
0.55 0.55 0.5 0.45

0.4 0.35 0.3 0.15 Cross section

Table 5: Water saturation scale Figure 3: Synthetic case: gridding of the reservoir
 SPE 69690 SAGD PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION THROUGH NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS: METHODOLOGY AND FIELD CASE EXAMPLE 7

300

250

Temperature °c
Inj 200
Prod T Prod
150 T Inj
10 days 50 days DT
100

50

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Time days
100 days 150 days
Figure 4: Synthetic case: temperature profiles during th Figure 7: Synthetic case: non-optimized BHT
preheating period

80
500 days
70
60
rate m3/d

50
40
30
Qoil surface
20
Qwater surface 1000 days
10 Qsteam surface
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Time days
Figure 8: Synthetic case: gas saturation profiles
Figure 5: Synthetic case: non-optimized rates

3.0
500 days
Cum SOR
2.5
Inst SOR
2.0
SOR

1.5 Unproduced fluids

1.0
1000 days
0.5

0.0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Time days

Figure 6: Synthetic case: non-optimized SOR Figure 9: Synthetic case: temperature profiles
8 P. EGERMANN, G. RENARD, E. DELAMAIDE SPE 69690

200

500 days
150

Rates m3/d
Triangular shape

100

Qoil surface
50 Qwater surface
1000 days Qsteam surface
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Time days
Figure 10: Synthetic case: Sg profiles (optimized)
Figure 13: Synthetic case: Rates (optimized)

500 days

Condensation front
200 days Rising period 250 days

1000 days

500 days Lateral extension 1000 days

Figure 11: Synthetic case: Temperature (optimized) Figure 14: Synthetic case: Sw profiles (optimized)

300 2.5

250 2.0
Temperature °c

200 T Prod
1.5
SOR

T Inj
150
DT 1.0 Optimized
100
Non optimized
0.5
50
0 0.0

0 200 400 600 800 1000 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

Time days Time days

Figure 12: Synthetic case: BHT (optimized) Figure 15: Synthetic case: comparison of SORs
SPE 69690 SAGD PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION THROUGH NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS: METHODOLOGY AND FIELD CASE EXAMPLE 9

300
Oilrate bottom conditions m3/d

160
250
140

Temperature °c
120 200
100
150 Tprod
80 Tinj
60 Simulation 100 DT
40 Butler 50
20
0 0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 0 200 400 600
Time days of production Time days

Figure 16: Synthetic case: comparison with Butler's model Figure 19: BHT from history match

210 days

550 days

Figure 17: Celtic injection-production history Figure 20: Steam saturation at two different times

400
200 Field oil rate Field water rate
350 Optimized water rate Optimized oil rate
175
300
150
Rates m3/d

125 250
Rate m3/d

100 200

75 150
Field oil rate
50 Field water rate 100
Simulated water rate Incremental production
25 Simulated oil rate 50
0 0
0 200 400 600 0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Time days Time days

Figure 21: Expected incremental production through

Figure 18: History matching of Celtic field data optimization procedure
10 P. EGERMANN, G. RENARD, E. DELAMAIDE SPE 69690

300 300

Oil rate bottom conditions m3/d

250 250
Temperature °c

200 200
150 Tprod 150
100 Tinj Simulation
DT 100
Butler
50 50
0 0
0 200 400 600 0 200 400 600
Time days Time days

Figure 22: BHT after optimization Figure 25: Comparison with Butler's model

2.5

2.0
Cumulative SOR

1.5

1.0
Optimized case
0.5 Base case

0.0
0 200 400 600
Time days

Figure 23: Improvement of SOR

210 days

550 days

Figure 24: Steam saturation at two different times after

optimization