New Options for Scaling Steam Injection Experiments

ABSTRACT Scaled model experiments are a valuable aid to steamflood design and simulation. They can also be an important adjunct to numerical simulators, when numerical simulators do not represent a recovery process adequately. Field data for history matching and data describing interaction between various components, additives, and porous media may not be readily available. Scaling techniques that are currently being used can also be limited, as they require porous media and pressure conditions different from those of the field being studied. Any properties dependent on pressure (e.g. PVT properties) or porous media (e.g. relative permeabilities) are not scaled accurately. New scaling criteria were developed which allow field porous media and pressure conditions to be used. Two of the new approaches achieve this in a novel manner by relaxing the requirements of geometric similarity. The advantages and disadvantages of each approach were investigated. In order to compare the capabilities of the scaling approaches, experimental results from a large model were compared with those from smaller models which were scaled using each approach. The ability of each approach to predict such parameters as energy and temperature distribution, oil production rate, water-oil ratio, steam zone size and steam breakthrough are presented. The scaling approaches which use field porous media and pressure conditions yielded results in agreement with those of an accepted high-pressure approach from the literature. The new approaches provide scaling options which should be better for steam processes which use additives (PVT properties must be scaled), processes which use pressure cycles (fluid compressibilities must be scaled), and processes in which it is essential to use the same porous media as found in the field.