Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology, Vol.44, No.4, 16-21, 2005
A new methodology for modelling of sand wormholes in field scale thermal simulation
Sand wormholes created by the concurrent production of sand and heavy oil are instrumental in improving oil rates and ultimate recovery. The wormholes form high permeability conduits for flow of oil and more sand. The wormholes may extend several hundred metres away from each well and connect with other wells' wormholes. Efforts have been made to predict the wormhole network based on growth of each wormhole's tip. In this paper, we use a fractal geostatistical method to pregenerate the wormhole network. This wormhole network is then incorporated into a full field thermal simulation model. A dual porosity-dual permeability grid is used, one for the reservoir pay and one for the wormhole network. The wormhole grid cells have the same pore volume as the wormholes and a sparse network structure. With this wormhole representation in the simulation model, we were able to match thermal responses of cold production wells from a steam injection pilot due to the wormholes conducting hot fluid from the steam injectors. As a result, this modelling concept for wormholes may be used to investigate post cold production thermal recovery methods as well as for thinner reservoirs not suitable for Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) where the wormholes may act as natural horizontal wells.