Vapour Extraction (VAPEX), a process to recover heavy oil by injecting vapourized solvent into a reservoir, has been extensively studied through small-scale 1-D and 2-D laboratory tests. Recently, a series of large-scale 3-D tests have been conducted by Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC). In this study, 2-D tests were conducted under the same conditions as those for the 3-D tests; then, numerical simulation models were investigated to reduce the uncertainty in upscaling the results from 2-D tests to 3-D tests. This helps to better understand the uncertainty in predicting the field-scale VAPEX performance. Plover Lake heavy oil was used in the tests, and the sandpack permeability was about 4.4 Darcy. In each test, the initial waterflooding was conducted prior to the subsequent solvent injection. Then, a numerical model was established to simulate the 2-D test. History match of the 2-D test was conducted by tuning the uncertainties such as the relative permeability, capillary pressure, solubility, and the wall effect in sand-packing. Afterwards the tuned parameters were applied to predict the 3-D test performance. Through comparison of the predicted and experimental results in the 3-D test, the capability of predicting up-scaled VAPEX processes through numerical simulation was examined, and the differences between physical and numerical modeling were identified. The results show that the waterflooding performance can be successfully predicted, whereas the uncertainty in upscaling the VAPEX process is large. In the waterflooding period, the predicted oil recovery factor was 25.78% compared with 23.4% in the 3-D test. In the VAPEX process, the difference between the predicted and measured oil recovery factors was in the range of 0.75–25.14%, depending on the different combination of uncertain parameters. This fact indicates that different scales of physical modeling are required in order to reduce the uncertainties in predicting the field-scale VAPEX performance.
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机译：蒸汽萃取（VAPEX），通过小规模1-D和2-D实验室试验，通过小规模的1-D和2-D实验室进行了广泛研究了通过将腐蚀溶剂注入重油的方法。最近，Saskatchewan研究委员会（SRC）进行了一系列大规模的3D测试。在该研究中，在与3-D测试相同的条件下进行2-D试验;然后，研究了数值模拟模型，以减少升高2-D测试的不确定性至3-D测试。这有助于更好地了解预测现场规模VAPEX性能的不确定性。在试验中使用了Plover Lake Repore油，砂包渗透率约为4.4达西。在每次测试中，在随后的溶剂注射之前进行初始水洗。然后，建立了数值模型来模拟2-D测试。通过调整砂包装中的相对渗透性，毛细管压力，溶解度等不确定性来进行2-D测试的历史匹配。之后应用调谐参数来预测3-D测试性能。通过对3-D测试中预测和实验结果的比较，检查了通过数值模拟预测上缩放的VAPEX过程的能力，鉴定了物理建模之间的差异。结果表明，可以成功预测到水上的性能，而升级的不确定性大幅度。在水上的期间，预测的溢油因子为25.78％，而3-D试验相比23.4％。在VAPEX过程中，预测和测量的溢油因子之间的差异在0.75-25.14％的范围内，这取决于不确定参数的不同组合。这一事实表明需要不同的物理建模尺度，以减少预测现场缩放VAPEX性能的不确定性。
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