May 12, 2004 Technical Dinner Meeting
(Bonnyville, AB - venue TBA)

Utilizing State of the Art SAGD Technologies: THERE IS LIFE AFTER SAGD
 ¤ K. C. Yeung, Suncor Energy Inc.

Biography: 

 K. C. Yeung is Supervisor of Special Studies, In Situ Operations and Technology at Suncor Energy Inc in Calgary.  He has been with Suncor for the last 25 years, working primarily in the areas of heavy oil reservoir engineering and R&D activities.  Prior to that, he worked for two years at Texaco Canada as a reservoir engineer in the Tar Sands Department.

 Besides his involvement in all of Suncor's heavy oil projects—including cyclic steam stimulation, steamflood, cold heavy oil production with sand (CHOPS), and SAGD—K.C. has for many years represented Suncor in various joint research and field in-situ projects. Currently, he is part of a project team to develop a 22,000 m³/d commercial SAGD project at Firebag in the Athabasca area. His specific work there includes: numerical simulation for production forecasting, selection of well locations, optimization of well spacing, well completion and sand control design, steam injection and production strategy.

 K.C. holds a B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering with Distinction and a M.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering, both from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.

 K.C. is a registered professional engineer in Alberta.  He is a member of the Petroleum Society, Canadian Heavy Oil Association (CHOA), SPE, and ASME. He is the Conference Co-chairman for the 2004 Canadian International Petroleum Conference (CIPC). He has had an active involvement with the technical program committees of various conferences in the last few years, and he was the Technical Program Chairman for the Petroleum Society’s 2002 Canadian International Petroleum Conference and the 1999 SPE/Petroleum Society One-day Horizontal Well Conference. KC is currently on the Board of Directors for CHOA and the Computer Modelling Group Foundation.

Abstract:

 The oil sands resources in Alberta are huge and estimated to be more than the reserves in Saudi Arabia.  Over 90% of the oil sands in Alberta are too deep for mining; therefore, if these are to be recovered, in situ methods must be utilized.  The Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage Process (SAGD) is now the process of choice to unlock these resources.  SAGD has come into the limelight following the success of the Dover Pilot (formerly referred to as the Underground Test Facility or “UTF”) as well as other SAGD pilots in Alberta and Saskatchewan.  Several SAGD commercial projects have commenced production in the past two years, and more are expected to come on stream within the next decade.

 Although SAGD is a fairly robust recovery process, well performance depends on many factors.  Some of the parameters that would affect the performance of SAGD are:

 The technology for SAGD is certainly not stagnant.  To ensure the economic viability of the SAGD project and to minimize source water as well as produced/disposal water problems, it is prudent for operators to look at ways to improve the steam oil ratio.  Low pressure SAGD is one of them, although some reservoirs with thief zones present no choice other than low pressure operation.  The challenge is to have proper wellbore architecture and/or artificial lift systems to efficiently bring the oil to surface.  Other technologies that are being researched and field-tested include injection of gas or solvent together with steam.

 This presentation will discuss the effects of some of the geological, operational, and well design parameters on well performance.  It will also describe some of the new technologies being developed to bring SAGD to the next generation.