SAGD and CSS Example

Activity Scheduler Home > Examples > SAGD and CSS Example

Analyzing the economics of a heavy oil resource play such as a Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS) or Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) project, requires a number of iterations looking at well capability, number of wells, facility sizing (oil handling and steam generation) , as well as timing. Using WellSpring, all of these variables can be easily modified to quickly look at the many permutations to the problem.

Let's look at a basic SAGD development, where we have an idea of the potential production, but want to better understand the infrastructure and costs required.

Assumptions:

Approximate type well production forecast
Drilling spacing
Number of wells
Possible tie in points for plant

What we are trying to find:

Drilling schedule
Total capital required
Rough project economics and cash flow

Process:

We can first build the basic network in a simplistic form to get an idea on the drilling timing, and the resultant production from the field.

Change the Global Options to use Steam as a variable in place of injected water. See Global Options

Set Optimization method to "Equal Well Constraints" in the project settings. See WellSpring Optimizer and Options and General Data / Project Data

Create a new Type well and enter its production forecast (Oil, gas, water and steam). See Using a Type Well in the Decline and Production Forecasting Section. Be sure to enter your capital and operating costs into this well (See Capital Expenditure and Operating Costs in the Data entry Section).

Create a simple network of a well feeding an oil battery, with steam flowing off to a steam generation facility. See Creating a Flow Network in the modeling section.

The simple network might look like the following:

Set up an Activity Scheduler schedule to model the project drilling (See Activity Scheduler) This example uses a "Fill Facilities" option with the Scheduler.

Calculate the scheduler program, and calculate the project (See Calculations)

View the results (See Network Tab Reporting and Reporting)

Change the drilling schedule (through the Scheduler tab).

Add any facility constraints (see Constraints in the facilities section), and re-calculate. The example above uses a 30,000 bbl/d limit on the steam generation.