Economic and technical boundary values of different thermal recovery methods in heavy oil reservoir development

Key words:  heavy oil  thermal recovery  dynamic economic evaluation  economic and technical boundary values

Abstract:

Based on the numerical simulation and dynamic economic evaluation，a method for studying economic and technical boundary values in the development of heavy oil reservoir by thermal recovery methods was built. Economic and technical boundary values of different thermal recovery methods including steam soak with vertical well, infill development in steam soak with vertical well, steam soak with horizontal well and steam flooding with vertical weil in southern of Le1 an Oilfield were studied, which include boundary values of effective thickness, oil viscosity and oil price. Meanwhile some practical plates were made. The results show that the steam soak with horizontal well could be used more extensively in the range of reservoir effective thickness and oil viscosity than the other three thermal recovery methods. While the stream flooding with vertical well has the highest oil recovery efficiency and a smaller effective thickness boundary value than that of the infill development in steam soak with vertical well. Based on the contrast results of economic and technical boundary values of different thermal recovery methods, the optimal thermal recovery method could be chosen easily for the heavy oil reservoir economic and reasonable development.