Abstract
In Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS), steam is usually injected above fracturing pressure into oil sands to achieve desired injectivity; thus fractures are generally induced. The induced fractures will affect heating and flow patterns and thus affect the choice of well spacing and steam injection strategies. Therefore, it is critical to evaluate fracture length for successful CSS projects.
Transient Temperature Analysis (TTA) is a technique which uses well-bore transient temperature data to estimate reservoir/wellbore characteristics. This paper discusses the feasibility of using TTA to evaluate the lengths of steam-induced fractures in cold lake oil sands by using wellbore transient temperature data in the soaking period of CSS. Numerical simulation model was first established based on history matching production data of a typical well in cold lake oil sands. Then the effect of different fracture lengths on temperature response in soaking phase was examined. Simulation results shows, in the middle and later period of soaking phase, linear relationships are found when temperature drop versus square root time are plotted. However, the correlation between fracture length and the slope is not clear. Based on the heated zone size and heated zone shape analysis at the very first moment of soaking phase, it is found the combined impact of reservoir permeability, reservoir thermal conductivity and fracture length determines the shut-in temperature response, which can be reflected on the slopes of the plots, with certain injection volume. But the qualitative representation of slope using fracture length, permeability and thermal conductivity cannot be found based on the results of finite difference based simulator. Aside from Finite difference method, simulation tools based on other numerical methods can be attempted to conduct TTA to evaluate the lengths of steam-induced fractures in CSS process.
