A Critical Review of the Status of SAGD: Where Are We and What is Next?

摘要

With around 7 trillion barrels reserves and recent increase in oil demand, there is no doubt that there would be tremendous effort on the development of heavy- oil/bitumen (HO-B) reservoirs in the next decades. Yet the in-situ recovery of HO-B is still not a simple process and there are many technical challenges accompanied with it. Two major techniques, namely thermal and miscible, have been considered in the HO-B development, along with several other auxiliary methods (chemical, gas, electromagnetic heating etc.) for different well configurations, steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) being the most popular among others. Miscible techniques did not yet go to a high commercial level, while thermal techniques have by far a stable foundation in the industry.