Wellbore Heat Loss Calculation During Steam Injection in Onshore & Offshore Environments
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- In the oil industry, the problem of wellbore heat loss during hot fluid injection is classical. Even today the topic is important for practical application of steam injection. Most thermal reservoir simulators today do not yet take into account heat losses and pressure drops along the wellbore. Neglecting these items may be acceptable for shallow reservoirs. For deeper injection wells and injection wells in offshore environments, however, wellbore heat loss is often significant. Accurate predictions of heat loss, temperature distributions and pressure profile are essential for modeling steam injection wells. The main goal of this study is to investigate heat losses along the wellbore during steam injection in both onshore and offshore environments. Steam quality, steam temperature, steam pressure, and heat loss values with and without insulation are calculated. In the literature, it is shown that the Fontanilla and Aziz model yields results in good agreement with field data. The Fontanilla and Aziz approach is used in this study, with an improvement in the application of two-phase flow correlations and the determination of several input parameters. The equations describing mass and heat flow are solved in discretized well-bore framework. Steam properties are incorporated directly. Several two-phase flow correlations for injection tubing, are used and results are compared. The calculated steam temperature and steam pressure agree well with the field data using the Beggs and Brill model. Six insulation materials are examined: 1) black aerogel, 2) white aerogel, 3) fiberglass, 4) carbon fiber, 5) thermolastic insulation and 6) calcium silicate. Aerogel insulations present the opportunity to create a superinsulated tubing that overcomes many limitations of current steam injectors. A Matlab Graphical User Interface $(GUI)$ is developed, that enables other users to change the input parameters and visualize the results without going into the details of the calculations. To our knowledge, no one has predicted the result of non-condensible gas addition on steam injectors. In this work, a novel approach is introduced for adding non-condensible gas to steam to increase the injection pressure without increasing the steam temperature. Additional partial pressure is obtained by adding $N_{2}$ to the system. Steam quality, steam temperature, steam pressure, and heat loss calculation are conducted for steam injection with non-condensible gas (N2). Compared with the case of just steam injection, the steam temperature values are smaller, so are the amounts of heat loss.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | September 2011 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Fidan, Selcuk |
|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Kovscek, Anthony R. |
| Advisor | Castanier, Louis |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Department of Energy Resources Engineering |
Subjects
| Subject | School of Earth Energy & Environmental Sciences |
|---|---|
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Fidan, Selcuk. (2011). Wellbore Heat Loss Calculation During Steam Injection in Onshore & Offshore Environments. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/dn928fx1060
Collection
Master's Theses, Doerr School of Sustainability
View other items in this collection in SearchWorksContact information
- Contact
- brannerlibrary@stanford.edu
Also listed in
Loading usage metrics...