Sequentially coupled thermal-hydraulic-mechanical simulation for geomechanical assessments of caprock integrity in SAGD
Abstract
Oil sand reservoirs and caprock undergo deformations triggered by pore pressure increases and thermal induced stresses during the steam-assisted-gravity-drainage (SAGD) processes. Geomechanical assessments are mandated by energy regulators to evaluate the caprock integrity and ensure the safe SAGD operations. Commercial reservoir simulation packages started to incorporate geomechanical effects when predicting flow response; however, these geomechanical modules are not able to correctly model the plastic deformations caused by thermal-hydraulic-mechanical (THM) interactions, which has a first order effect on predicting steam chamber propagation and evaluating caprock integrity. An integrated coupled THM modeling methodology is proposed here to improve the modeling of reservoir deformations and caprock integrity in a heterogeneous oil sand reservoir with interbedded shale barriers. The pressure and temperature front are found to propagate at different speed and that dominate the elastic and plastic deformations caused by changes of shear and mean effective stress. Therefore, four stages are divided in the SAGD process that can be interpretations of changes in stress paths including buildup of pore pressure, generation and dissipation of thermal induced stresses. The response surfaces of minimum factor of safety are introduced and computed to provide a conservative estimate for caprock integrity during SAGD of a heterogeneous reservoir with multiple layers of caprocks in Athabasca oil sands.
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Published In
Canadian Geotechnical Journal
Volume 61 • Number 6 • June 2024
Pages: 1242 - 1265
History
Received: 3 May 2023
Accepted: 8 September 2023
Accepted manuscript online: 9 September 2023
Version of record online: 25 April 2024
Copyright
© 2024 The Author(s). Permission for reuse (free in most cases) can be obtained from copyright.com.
Data Availability Statement
Data generated or analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Author Contributions
Conceptualization: BZ, RC, JB
Data curation: BZ
Formal analysis: BZ
Funding acquisition: RC
Investigation: BZ
Methodology: BZ, RC, JB
Project administration: RC
Resources: RC
Supervision: RC, JB
Software: BZ
Validation: BZ
Visualization: BZ
Writing – original draft: BZ
Writing – review & editing: BZ, RC, JB
Competing Interests
The authors declare there are no competing interests.
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Bo Zhang, Rick Chalaturnyk, and Jeff Boisvert. 2024. Sequentially coupled thermal-hydraulic-mechanical simulation for geomechanical assessments of caprock integrity in SAGD. Canadian Geotechnical Journal.
61(6): 1242-1265. https://doi.org/10.1139/cgj-2023-0228
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