Cyclic stimulation of cold lake oil sand with supercritial ethane

摘要

In a three dimensional scaled physical modeling experiment, Cold Lake oil sand was subjected to cyclic stimulation with supercritical ethane through a single horizontal injector/producer well located at the base of the reservoir. Hot ethane gas was injected into the bottom of the formation until the bottle hole pressure reached slightly above the ethane supercritical pressure of 4.9 MPa. Production of diluted bitumen followed the injection cycle through the same horizontal well until pressure in the reservoir was depleted slightly below 4 MPa. At that pressure liquid production rates were very low. During the experiment, temperature in the model varied considerably with the distance from the wellbore as well as with the number of stimulation cycles.