pubs.acs.

org/EF Article

Significance of Aquathermolysis Reaction on Heavy Oil Recovery

during the Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage Process
Jianliang Zhang, Fei Han, Zhengda Yang, Liqiang Zhang, Xinwei Wang, Xiuxia Zhang, Ye Jiang,
Kai Chen, Huida Pan, and Riyi Lin*
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ABSTRACT: The steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process is effective to improve oil recovery performance, but it also
promotes the aquathermolysis reaction of heavy oil under high-temperature reservoir environment. In the present work, a geological
model considering core-catalyzed aquathermolysis was established and used to simulate mining in the SAGD process. Results
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showed that gas generation from aquathermolysis reaction was enhanced by core. Then, the gas production model considering
aquathermolysis catalyzed by core was embedded into the geological model. The simulation results show that the main reaction
areas of aquathermolysis occurred at the top of the reservoir and the liquid pool near the production well. The steam chamber
growth was suppressed, and the simulation results of oil production and cumulative steam−oil ratio were closer to the actual
recovery date. By adopting the new model, the recovery situation can be predicted more accurately, so that we can determine the
impact of different harvest conditions on the SAGD process.

1. INTRODUCTION on adjusting physical parameters and studying various physical

With the continuous development of the global economy, the processes. However, some researchers began to notice the
increasing energy demand and the shrinking of light oil significance of chemical changes in the SAGD development
resources in the world have made the improvement of heavy process. Typical steam pressure ranges from 1000 to 5000 kPa
oil recovery a research hotspot. Heavy oil accounts for a large depending on the formation and the reservoir depth, and the
corresponding saturated steam temperature is between 185
proportion of the petroleum resources in the world.1
and 285 °C.10 Complex aquathermolysis reaction will occur
According to statistics, there are about 1000 × 1010 ton of
under such high-temperature and high-pressure steam
heavy oil, super heavy oil, and natural bitumen hosted in the
conditions.11,12 Under the pressure of heavy oil and super-
world.2 Therefore, heavy oil resources will play an important
heated water, a complex aquathermolysis reaction will occur.
role in national energy strategies in the future.
Such reactions, and many others, are promoted by changes in
Heavy oil is rich in heavy organic compounds such as colloid
the chemical and physical properties of water as temperature
and asphaltene, leading to high viscosity and difficulty of
increases. In this chemistry, water participates as a catalyst,
mining.3 Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is an
reactant, and solvent.13 During the SAGD mining process,
effective solution for exploiting heavy oil, which attracts
aquathermolysis reactions can generate various substances, but
much attention among researchers. Yuan and McFarlane4 used
the generated gas has a greater impact on the expansion of the
the discretized wellbore model to study the effect of steam
steam chamber and the effect of oil recovery. The experimental
quality, circulation rate, and the pressure difference between
analysis of the chemical interaction between heavy oil and
the well pair on the uniformity of reservoir heating, occurrence
water by Hyne11 and others showed that the active substance
of steam breakthrough, and communication time between the
in the sulfur-containing organic substance reacts with water to
well pair. Mohammadi et al.5 optimized the fast-SAGD process
form a substance with a small molecular weight. The small
in terms of time and accuracy by adjusting effective parameters
molecules then participate in a series of reactions to produce
including injection pressure and rate, injection, production,
smaller compounds such as CH4, H2, H2S, and carbon oxides.
and offset well heights, offset well pressure, and injection and
Moreover, Hyne11 believes that the aquathermolysis reaction
production periods. Huang et al.6 emphasized that reservoir
plays a leading role at the temperatures ranging from 170 to
heterogeneity had a serious impact on SAGD development and
300 °C. However, when the temperature exceeds 300 °C, the
analyzed the impact of multiple barrier layers with different
combinations on the SAGD process. Gasser Dorado et al.7
studied the effect of reservoir heterogeneity on H2S production Received: November 19, 2019
during SAGD production. Xiong et al.8 researched the effects Revised: April 6, 2020
of injector-producer pressure difference on SAGD for bitumen Published: April 14, 2020
recovery by establishing a novel model. Wang et al.9 researched
the influence of low-permeability interlayer on the steam
chamber expansion. The above work on SAGD mainly focused

© 2020 American Chemical Society https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.9b04004

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Table 1. Oil Sample Viscosity at Different Temperatures
temp (°C) 50 55 60
viscosity (mPa·s) 2319.1 2204.5 489.2
thermal cracking reaction plays a major role, converting heavier
molecules into coke. Clark and Hyne14 examined aqua-
thermolysis reactions of Athabasca oil sand at 240 °C, a
temperature typical of that in steam stimulation processes used
to recover bitumen from oil sand reservoirs. Based on the
reactants and products of the reaction, the reaction equation is
summarized as follows:
Heavy oil + H 2O →
H 2S + CO2 + CH4 + H 2 + CO + C2 + (1)
Many researchers have focused on the mechanism of
aquathermolysis reaction by both simulation and experiment.
Ibatulin et al.15 used two first-order reactions to simulate the
evolution of H2S and CO2 during the production of heavy oil
by SAGD, but the model could not predict the formation of
H2, CH4, CO, or hydrocarbon. Thimm et al.16,17 predicted the
H2S content of bitumen-forming gas in the Athabasca based on
the dissolution diffusion model and pseudo-zero-order kinetics,
where the Arrhenius parameter was estimated by experimental
data from Chen et al.17 and Hyne.11 Although the prediction of
H2S concentration was consistent with the actual data, the
model did not determine the reaction zone in the reservoir.
Ayache et al.18−20 studied the mechanisms of H2S production
during SAGD processes using a sulfur-based compositional
kinetic model and compositional thermal reactive reservoir
simulations.
The aquathermolysis reaction of heavy oil and superheated
water can be catalyzed, which has been confirmed by many
scholars. Lin et al.21 catalyzed aquathermolysis of crude oil
with an easily prepared high-efficiency Fe3O4-containing
catalyst. Mukhamatdinov et al.22 researched the influence of
Co-based catalyst on the composition of heavy oil asphaltenes
during aquathermolysis. In addition, Fan et al.23 also
mentioned that metal salts such as Fe2+ have a catalytic effect
on the aquathermolysis reaction, which can break the C−S
bond and reduce the viscosity of heavy oil. Therefore, these
metal ions and metal oxides have a certain catalytic effect on
the aquathermolysis of heavy oil. These metal ions naturally
exist in the core.
Kapadia et al.24 analyzed previous experimental data to
establish a new kinetic model for aquathermolysis reactions
and to study the gas production during the SAGD simulation.
The new kinetic model consisted of seven reactions and eight
components and was verified by using the data from the
Athabasca deposit.10 The production of H2S, CO2, CH4, and
reaction zone in the process of SAGD simulation was studied,
but the SAGD model did not use a geologic model. The
physical processes of gravity drainage and steam chamber
growth in SAGD process are well understood,25,26 whereas the
effects of aquathermolysis reaction on these processes are still
unclear.
In this paper, in order to clarify the effect of aquathermolysis
reaction on SAGD simulation results in the presence of cores, a
gas generation model of heavy oil aquathermolysis under core
catalysis conditions was established. Finally, a geological model
considering aquathermolysis reactions catalyzed by core was
created and applied. First, the aquathermolysis reaction of
Article
65 70 75 80 85 90
316.7 221.6 163.1 104.1 93.5 86.7
heavy oil under core (when used) catalysis was explored, and a
parallel reaction system for aquathermolysis was established to
determine the reaction orders and kinetic parameters of each
parallel reaction. Then, the kinetic model for measuring gas
evolution during aquathermolysis was embedded into the
reservoir geologic simulation model made by computer
modeling group reservoir simulation software (CMG). Based
on this, the main reaction areas for aquathermolysis were
investigated, and the influence of gas produced by aqua-
thermolysis on the expansion law of steam chamber and on the
result of SAGD simulation was discussed.
2. EXPERIMENT AND MODELING
2.1. Materials. The oil sample was collected from Guantao-84
Fault Block, Liaohe Oilfield, PetroChina. The relationship between oil
sample viscosity and temperature is shown in Table 1. Elements of the
oil sample were detected by using a CHSN/O elemental analyzer
(VarioEL III, Elementary, Germany), and the results are shown in
Table 2. As can be seen, the crude oil was featured with sulfur content
as low as 0.38%, which belonged to low-sulfur oil.
Table 2. Element Contents of Crude Oil (wt %)
H C N S others
11.05 85.37 0.81 0.38 2.39
The core sample was collected from the same oil field with a depth
of 770.8−772.8 m. Elements and mineral contents of the core sample
were quantified by using an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (Axios-
Petro, PANalytical BV, Netherlands) and X-ray diffractometer (X’Pert
Pro, PANalytical BV, Netherlands), respectively. The corresponding
chemical elements and mineralogical determination of the core
sample are summarized in Tables 3 and 4, respectively. It can be
observed that the content of the elements O and Si in the mineral
core of the reservoir is very high. In addition, it contains metal
elements such as Al, K, Na, Mg, and Fe, and the element S is also
detected. Most of the above elements exist in the rock of the reservoir
as metal compounds. When high-temperature steam is injected into
the reservoir, the steam releases the latent heat and heats the reservoir
to condense into water. The metal compound dissolves in water to
catalyze the aquathermolysis process as metal ions.23
2.2. Experimental Setup and Procedure. The aquathermolysis
reaction was investigated with a high-temperature and high-pressure
reactor as shown in Figure 1, which contained a reaction chamber, a
gas feeding and heating system, and a product collection and
detection system.
The reaction chamber was a stainless-steel autoclave (HKY, Haian,
China) with an internal volume of 100 mL. A quartz tube with a
volume of 50 mL was placed in the center of the autoclave. During the
experiments, 5 g of heavy oil, 15 mL of deionized water, and 5 g of
core (when used) were added into the quartz tube separately. The
autoclave was evacuated to vacuum with a vacuum pump and was
pressured with N2 (Tianyuan, China, 99.99% purity) to 0.8 MPa to
maintain an oxygen-free environment. During the reaction, as the
temperature increased, the pressure gradually increased from 0.8 MPa
to about 10 MPa. The autoclave was electrically heated by a tubular
furnace (Guanshi, Longkou-Xianke, China) with a heating rate of 10
°C/min. The operating temperature and pressure were monitored in
real time, and the maximum operating temperature and pressure were
600 °C and 20 MPa, respectively. The role of the condenser and dryer
is to remove water. After each reaction, the generated gases were
collected with a gas-sampling bag. The gas components were detected
by an H2S detector (PN-2000-H2S, Penglei, China) and a gas
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Table 3. Element Contents of the Reservoir Core (wt %)

O Si Al K Na Fe S Mg Ca
45.036 30.126 8.258 2.739 1.934 1.376 0.542 0.615 0.496
Ti Ba P Sr Zr Mn Rb Zn Ce
0.363 0.157 0.044 0.026 0.020 0.021 0.011 0.007 0.004

Table 4. Mineral Composition of the Reservoir Core (wt %)
potash
quartz feldspar plagioclase calcite ankerite pyrite
50 23 20 1 2 − 4
Figure 1. Diagram of the experimental system.
chromatograph (7890A, Agilent, USA). The reaction time and
temperature varied in ranges of 1∼9 day and 240, 260, or 280 °C,
respectively. A total of 30 experiments were conducted in this study,
and specific reaction conditions are shown in Table S1.
2.3. Reaction Kinetic Model. It was reported that gases including
H2S, CO2, CH4, H2, CO, and hydrocarbon organic gas with carbon
atoms greater than two (C2+) were generated from aquathermolysis
reaction of heavy oil. The overall reaction process can be described by
the following lumped reaction equation:
Heavy oil + H 2O → H 2S + CO2 + CH4 + H 2 + CO + C2 +
(1a)
At present, the aquathermolysis reaction of heavy oil is so
complicated to obtain detailed reaction schemes that it is generally
clay simplified by using pseudocomponents. Given that heavy oil is a
minerals pseudocomponent, the reaction of aquathermolysis can be split into
eight reactions as a consequence (Table 6 below). A detailed
description of each reaction can be referred to Kapadia’s work.16
According to the experimental results, the amounts of CH4, CO2,
H2S, and other gases were positively correlated with reaction
temperature and time (Table 5). Based on this, an accelerating
reaction model can be used to model the parallel reactions of
generating H2S, CO2, CH4, H2, CO, and C2+ gases.27,28
dα
= nα(n − 1)/ n·k(T )
dt (2)
where α is the conversion fraction of the component, t is the reaction
time (s), n is the order of the reaction, k is the reaction rate (1/day),
and T is the reaction temperature (K).
The above equation can be integrated into the following form:
α1/ n = k · t + c (3)
where c represents the integration constant.
According to the Arrhenius relationship, the reaction rate relies on
the reaction temperature:
k = Ae−Ea / RT (4)
where A is the pre-exponential factor, E is the activation energy (kJ/
mol), and R is the gas constant (J/(mol·K)).
The above equation can be converted into the following form by
the logarithm of both sides
Ea
ln k = ln A −
RT (5)
The properties of each component in the reaction model are shown
in Table S2.24,29
2.4. CMG Simulation. Kinetic parameters such as reaction rate,
activation energy, and pre-exponential factor can be calculated with
the above model. Furthermore, three-dimensional (3-D) simulations

Table 5. Composition of the Gas Products after 1, 3, and 5 days

temp (°C) time (day) condition H2S (%) CO2 (%) CH4 (%) H2 (%) CO (%) C2+ (%)
240 1 without core 0.115 4.096 10.741 0.086 0.093 84.877
with core 0.162 11.047 12.564 0.135 0.143 75.949
3 without core 0.253 8.962 18.768 0.150 0.163 71.624
with core 0.451 22.805 25.637 0.238 0.258 50.611
5 without core 0.380 13.125 27.695 0.213 0.224 58.277
with core 0.732 32.724 39.854 0.337 0.361 25.996
260 1 without core 0.167 5.573 13.787 0.118 0.110 80.232
with core 0.299 13.643 14.688 0.204 0.190 70.777
3 without core 0.411 10.605 24.854 0.264 0.204 63.606
with core 0.728 24.921 30.847 0.404 0.320 42.580
5 without core 0.638 15.033 36.879 0.40 0.289 46.643
with core 1.151 34.961 48.405 0.603 0.439 14.241
280 1 without core 0.226 6.337 15.367 0.194 0.129 77.724
with core 0.405 15.612 17.814 0.287 0.229 65.453
3 without core 0.634 12.314 30.439 0.490 0.243 55.826
with core 1.009 26.407 35.969 0.655 0.379 35.301
5 without core 1.056 17.427 45.273 0.798 0.345 35.207
with core 1.636 36.551 56.276 1.018 0.505 3.714

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Figure 2. Three-dimensional reservoir geological model of Du84 block.
were performed by CMG reservoir simulator with kinetic parameter,
viscosity−temperature curve, and oil density modified. The geological
reservoir model of the Guantao Reservoir of Du84 block was
characterized in terms of component and structure differences among
different layers. The heterogeneity of porosity and permeability in
planes, interlayers, and internal is obvious. Moreover, the interlayer
heterogeneity is more intense. Table S3 shows some of the important
geological parameters used in the simulation. Tables S4−S6 shows the
distribution of CH4, CO2, and H2S in the gas−water phases and gas−
oil phases calculated by Gillis et al.30
During the thermal reservoir simulation process, the simulation
accuracy of steam chamber expansion and fluid behavior was affected
by the grid size. Smaller grid size led to a larger grid number and an
increase in simulation time. Therefore, both simulation accuracy and
calculation speed were taken into consideration when dividing the
grid. The whole model consisted of 66 960 000 grid blocks (800 ×
270 × 310). The thickness of the reservoir is 110 m, and the grid steps
in the x- and y-directions are both 0.6 m. In the z-direction (vertical
direction), the height of each grid block was equal to 0.35 m. The
overall geological model was separated in the Petrel software and was
further imported into CMG software. Figure 2 displays the grid model
of the Guantao Reservoir of Du84 block.
To validate the integrated model, the simulation of the geological
model was carried out, and results were compared with the historical
production data, which helps to better predict the distribution of
reservoir fluids and future production. For this purpose, the
production data of Guan H50 and Guan H71-1(2) over several
years were selected. The steam injection parameters for simulation
were set exactly based on the actual production parameters. The well
head steam with quality of 90% was injected at a flow rate of 400 m3/
day at 240 °C (3.35 MPa). The results demonstrated that the relative
error between the cumulative oil production calculated by numerical
simulation and the historical production value of the oil field was less
than 10%, and the cumulative production water calculation error was
less than 4%. When considering aquathermolysis, the chemical
reaction was embedded by writing specific parameters (including
material parameters, K values, reaction kinetic parameters, etc.) of
each parallel reaction in the component properties. This simulation
used the STARS module in CMG to perform numerical simulation of
the SAGD mining process on the reservoir block.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1. Experimental Gas Generation Results. The
reaction reached equilibrium in about 5 days because the gas
production no longer increases after 5 days. The gas generation
5429
Article
during the experimental period of 1, 3, and 5 days is shown in
Figure 3. The results show that with the extension of the
reaction time, the long-chain substances are broken to produce
short-chain substances. Table 5 shows the conversion rates of
the gases used to calculate the kinetic parameters under
different experimental conditions.
3.2. Kinetic Parameter Calculation. The production of
each gas component tended to be stable after 5 days.
Consequently, data of 1, 3, and 5 days were chosen to
calculate the kinetic parameters. Prior to calculating the kinetic
parameters, the reaction order was determined according to
the experiment data at 240, 260, and 280 °C in the presence
and absence of core (as shown in Figure 4).
The regression results showed that it agreed the best with
the experiment data when the reaction order was 1, which was
consistent with Kapadia’s conclusion.8 According to eq 4, the
reaction rate at different reaction temperatures can be
calculated as shown in Figure 5.
Furthermore, the Arrhenius equation for H2S generation in
the absence and presence of core is plotted as an example in
Figure 6. Correspondingly, the activation energy was calculated
to be 62.3998 and 46.8597 kJ/mol for those two cases.
Calculations for other gases were conducted by following the
same procedure.
Compared with the experiments in the laboratory, the
reactions in the actual reservoir can be more complex since the
steam with high temperature and pressure is continuously
injected. The activation energy only depends on the reaction
temperature; thus, it is believed to be the same for the
laboratory and the field. However, according to Kapadia6 the
frequency factor should be modified to eliminate the impact of
scale on the simulation accuracy. Typically, the frequency
factors under oil field simulation conditions are 20% of the
value obtained from experiments. In addition, the kinetic
parameters for the reaction of CO + H2O → CO2 + H2 and
CO2 + H2 → CO + H2O are referred to Guntermann et al.31
The kinetic parameters of all parallel reactions in the
presence or absence of core are summarized in Table 6. It can
be seen that the activation energies of each reaction were
significantly reduced after adding core in the reaction. They
decreased by 24.9%, 68.3%, 33.4%, 16.5%, 26.5%, and 44.4%
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Figure 3. Composition of the gas products after 1 (a), 3 (b), and 5 (c) days.
for the parallel reactions of generating gas of aquathermolysis.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the presence of the core
had an excellent catalytic effect on the aquathermolysis
reaction.
3.3. Application of Aquathermolysis Reaction in the
Actual Oil Field. The aquathermolysis kinetic model with
core catalysis was embedded into a thermal reservoir
simulation model. The main position of the reaction of
pubs.acs.org/EF Article
aquathermolysis was determined by the distribution of
hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide. The influence of
aquathermolysis on steam chamber expansion was determined
by reservoir temperature and oil saturation. Finally, the effect
of the aquathermolysis reaction in the presence of core on
simulated results was studied.
3.3.1. Determination of the Reaction Zone for Aqua-
thermolysis. Figure 7 shows cross-sectional views of
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Figure 4. Linear regression coefficients under different reaction orders in the (a) presence and (b) absence of core.
Figure 5. Estimation of the reaction rate for H2S under different temperatures.
Figure 6. Arrhenius plot of H2S generation in the presence and
absence of core.
concentration of H2S and CO2 for the SAGD process with
aquathermolysis reaction. The two black blocks in the cloud
pubs.acs.org/EF Article
are well groups: the upper black block represents the gas
injection well, and the lower one represents the production
well. H2S is the gas generated from the aquathermolysis
reaction catalyzed by the core, and the main reaction position
of the aquathermolysis reaction can be determined according
to its concentration. The H2S concentration was higher at the
top of the reservoir, as shown in the upper part of the cloud
map. In addition, the concentration of H2S in the oil−water
mixing zone near the production well was high during the 18−
21 years of production. This shows that the main reaction
zones of aquathermolysis reaction are the above two places.
The distribution of CO2 was relatively uniform, and the CO2
content in the formation beyond the edge of the chamber was
high. This is advantageous for the process because H2S
provides an insulating gas layer between the chamber and the
cap rock.8 The higher CO2 concentration in the reservoir
outside the steam chamber can reduce the viscosity of heavy
oil, lowering the difficulty of mining.32
3.3.2. Effect of Aquathermolysis on Steam Chamber
Expansion. The cross-sectional views (Figures 8 and 9)
illustrate the distribution of steam chamber temperature and
oil saturation with and without aquathermolysis. Comparing
Figure 8 with Figure 9, it can be seen that the high-temperature
area of the SAGD steam chamber considering the aqua-
thermolysis was significantly smaller than that without
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Table 6. Kinetic Parameters of Parallel Reaction in the Presence and Absence of Core
reaction activation energy frequency factor regression modified frequency factor
reaction order (kJ/mol) (1/day) coefficient (1/day)
without coreheavy oil → H2S 1.0 62.3998 1638.6041 0.9999 −
heavy oil → CO2 0.8 20.0378 1.7028 0.9932 −
heavy oil → CH4 1.2 25.3965 24.5473 0.9968 −
heavy oil → H2 1.0 80.7011 64757.1890 0.9987 −
heavy oil → CO 0.8 32.6504 0.1998 0.9919 −
heavy oil → C2+ 1.0 26.4967 39.6702 0.9993 −
with core heavy oil → H2S 1.0 46.8597 86.5827 0.9983 17.3165
heavy oil → CO2 0.8 6.3563 0.2170 0.9899 0.0434
heavy oil → CH4 1.2 16.9021 4.6464 0.9950 0.9293
heavy oil → H2 1.0 67.4028 4621.6174 0.9999 924.3235
heavy oil → CO 0.8 23.9857 0.0476 0.9954 0.0095
heavy oil → C2+ 1.0 14.7354 4.5294 0.9971 0.9059
CO + H2O → CO2 + H2 1.0 149.0 − − 5.573 × 107
CO2 + H2 → CO + H2O 1.0 199.0 − − 4.214 × 109

Figure 7. Cross-sectional views of concentration of H2S and CO2 for the SAGD process with aquathermolysis reaction. Year 0 refers to the start of
SAGD after the initial steam circulation stage.

Figure 8. Cross-sectional views of distribution of (a) steam chamber temperature and (b) oil saturation evolution for SAGD process with
aquathermolysis reaction.

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Figure 9. Cross-sectional views of (a) steam chamber temperature and (b) oil saturation evolution for the SAGD process without aquathermolysis
reaction.

Figure 10. Comparison of history matching of oil production.

Figure 11. Comparison of cumulative oil production, daily oil rate, and cumulative steam−oil ratio evolution for the SAGD process.

considering aquathermolysis after 6 years of the SAGD
process.
At the edge of the steam chamber with high temperature,
heavy oil and condensate exist, resulting in a high amount of
gas generated by the aquathermolysis reaction. This leads to
higher gas concentrations and lower steam partial pressure
around the steam chamber edge,8 thereby affecting the
5433
condensation heat transfer of the steam around the steam
chamber edge. The poor heat transfers at the edge hindered
steam chamber growth over the course of the SAGD process,
which caused the shrinkage of high-temperature zone and low-
oil-saturation zone.
3.3.3. Effect of Aquathermolysis on Actual Oil Recovery.
Figure 10 depicts the comparison of history matching of oil
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production for well H71-1(2) in the presence or absence of
aquathermolysis reaction. It can be seen that the model
considering the aquathermolysis with core catalysis showed
higher daily oil production. More importantly, its predicted
productions were more consistent with historical actual
production data of these two wells. Therefore, it can be
concluded that the new model can predict the oil production
well.
This geological model considering aquathermolysis reaction
under core catalysis can be used to simulate the oil well over a
period of 22 years. The comparison of cumulative oil
production, daily oil rate, and cumulative steam−oil ratio
evolution for the SAGD process is displayed in Figure 11. In
the case of considering aquathermolysis reaction with core
catalysis, the oil rate peaks at 71.8 m3/day after 15.5 years of
the SAGD process, and the oil rate declines to 63.4 m3/day
after 21 years of the process. The cumulative oil recovered is
416 387.25 m3 which corresponds to a recovery factor equal to
21.6%. As Figure 11 shows, the change of cumulative steam−
oil ratio (cSOR) versus time is presented. The cSOR dropped
until a minimum of 7.6 m3/m3 (steam volume expressed as
cold water equivalent) after about 17.8 years.
It can be seen from Figure 11 that compared with the two
cases, the peak value of daily oil production was advanced
under the consideration of aquathermolysis. Furthermore, the
daily oil production and the cumulative oil production were
both higher within about 6 years after the steam chamber
extended to the cap rock (within 10 years of mining). This is
because the gas generated by the aquathermolysis was enriched
between the steam chamber and the cap rock, which reduced
the heat loss. It may also be because the H2 and CO2 produced
by the aquathermolysis were soluble in the oil, which reduced
the viscosity of the oil. In the following period, the daily oil
production and the cumulative oil production of the numerical
simulation considering aquathermolysis were decreased. This is
due to the expansion of the steam chamber being hindered,
which led to a decrease in oil recovery in the later period.
In addition, the cumulative steam−oil ratio of simulation
considering aquathermolysis has always been lower than the
general simulation. This is mainly due to the fact that product
gases from aquathermolysis reactions inhibit steam from
delivering heat efficiently to the cap rock.
4. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, based on the experiment results of aqua-
thermolysis reaction, the kinetics parameters of each parallel
reaction of heavy oil, water, and core were obtained. The
kinetic model of aquathermolysis reaction was encoded into
the reservoir geological simulation model. The main
conclusions can be summarized as follows:
(1) The experimental results show that the aquathermolysis
reaction reached equilibrium in about 5 days. After
addition of the core, the gas production increased
significantly, and the activation energy of each parallel
reaction decreased significantly.
(2) The H2S concentration is higher in the top of the
reservoir and the liquid pool near the production well,
indicating that these areas are the main areas where
aquathermolysis reaction takes place.
(3) The high-temperature region in the simulated temper-
ature field with the consideration of aquathermolysis was
significantly shrunk. This indicates that the gas produced
5434
Article
by aquathermolysis inhibits the growth of the steam
cavity, resulting in a reduction in oil production in the
later stages of production.
(4) According to the simulation results using geological
model considering aquathermolysis reaction under core
catalysis, due to the influence of gas generated by
aquathermolysis, the oil production rate in the initial
stage of extraction was higher than the conventional
SAGD, accompanied by a lower cumulative steam−oil
ratio. But in the later stage of production, the oil
production rate was lower.
■
ASSOCIATED CONTENT
*
sı Supporting Information
The Supporting Information is available free of charge at
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.9b04004.
Experiment reaction conditions; properties of each
component in the kinetics reaction model; geological
properties of the Guantao Reservoir; distribution of
CH4, CO2, and H2S in the gas−water and gas−oil phases
(Tables S1−S6) (PDF)
■ AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
Riyi Lin − College of New Energy, China University of Petroleum
(East China), Qingdao 266580, P. R. China; orcid.org/
0000-0002-7086-8919; Phone: +86-0532-8698-1767;
Email: linry@upc.edu.cn
Authors
Jianliang Zhang − College of New Energy, China University of
Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, P. R. China
Fei Han − College of New Energy, China University of Petroleum
(East China), Qingdao 266580, P. R. China
Zhengda Yang − College of New Energy, China University of
Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, P. R. China
Liqiang Zhang − College of New Energy, China University of
Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, P. R. China
Xinwei Wang − College of New Energy, China University of
Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, P. R. China
Xiuxia Zhang − College of New Energy, China University of
Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, P. R. China;
orcid.org/0000-0002-5432-6917
Ye Jiang − College of New Energy, China University of Petroleum
(East China), Qingdao 266580, P. R. China; orcid.org/
0000-0003-4000-2214
Kai Chen − College of New Energy, China University of
Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, P. R. China
Huida Pan − College of New Energy, China University of
Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, P. R. China
Complete contact information is available at:
https://pubs.acs.org/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.9b04004
Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
■ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by the
National Science and Technology Major Project of the
Ministry of Science and Technology of China
(2016ZX05012-002-005), National Natural Science Founda-
tion of China (No. 51874333), Natural Science Foundation of
https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.9b04004
Energy Fuels 2020, 34, 5426−5435
Energy & Fuels pubs.acs.org/EF
Shandong Province, China (No. ZR2017MEE030) and the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central University (No.
19CX02014A).
■
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