Vapour extraction (VAPEX) process for recovery of heavy oil and bitumen
- CANMET, Ottawa, Ontario (Canada)
- Univ. of Calgary, Alberta (Canada)
- Imperial Oil Resources Limited, Calgary, Alberta (Canada); and others
For over 90% of the vast resources of bitumen and heavy oil in Canada, in situ recovery processes have to be developed to produce and utilize them efficiently and economically. Thermal recovery processes using steam, although effective for thick reservoirs with good quality sands, are increasingly proving to be uneconomical, particularly for thin, shaley, or bottom water reservoirs. The inefficiency is caused by large heat losses, high water requirement, extensive surface facilities, and adverse environmental impact. To overcome these problems, a new non-thermal vapour extraction (VAPEX) process has been developed. The process is closely related to the Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) concept. However, in the VAPEX process the steam chamber is replaced with a chamber containing light hydrocarbon vapours close to its dew point at the reservoir pressure. If the pressure used is close to the saturation pressure of hydrocarbons, deasphalting may occur in the reservoir causing a substantial reduction in viscosity and heavy metal contents. Experiments conducted in a Hele-Shaw cell and in a 2D physical scaled model using Lloydminster, Cold Lake, and Peace River heavy oil/bitumen and ethane, propane, and butane as solvents demonstrated that this process is very promising technically as well as economically. An active aquifer underlying the bitumen zone made the reservoir more valuable because of spreading of the solvent vapour directly underneath the formation which increased the vapour-bitumen contact extensively. The investigation was extended from a dual horizontal continuous injection/production well strategy described above to a single horizontal well cyclic process for the Cold Lake reservoir in a 3D physical scaled model. The tests illustrated that ethane was an effective solvent in producing Cold Lake bitumen and that the cyclic VAPEX process has the potential to be a breakthrough recovery technology.
- OSTI ID:
- 269584
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9502114--Vol.1
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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