Heavy Oil Special Interest Group Luncheon:
31 Ways that THAI is Superior to SAGD
Date: Tuesday, 10 April 2018
Speaker: Dr. Conrad Ayasse
Location: Calgary Petroleum Club
Time: 11:30 am – 1:00 pm
Cost: $45 SPE Members, $55 Non-members, $15 Students
Abstract:
The Toe-to-heel (THAI) process was operated by Petrobank Energy and Resources for 4-years at Conklin recovering bitumen and for 6-years at Kerrobert recovering heavy oil. It is still operating under Proton Energy today at Kerrobert. In the presentation, considerable Conklin operational data will be provided.
THAI was safe, predictable and robust. It proved to have lower Capex, Opex and GHG emissions than SAGD. It had a smaller footprint and was a net producer of water suitable for SAGD use. Lifting costs in a virgin reservoir were zero (e.g. Conklin). Bitumen was upgraded to heavy oil downhole, increasing asset value and reducing diluent costs by 33%: It was also easy to upgrade to pipeline specifications, eliminating diluent altogether. The applicability of THAI is exceptional: the pay for Conklin wells was 6-9 metres with 3-meters of bottom water and for Kerrobert was 10-30 meters with 10-30 meters of bottom water. This means that the majority of Alberta bitumen could be recovered using THAI. A simple and economical technology was proven in a field pilot for removing produced H2S, and the remaining gas can be used for power generation. In summary, THAI was a technical success, but the production rates were insufficient to assure an economical success. However, an improvement, Multi-THAI, which simultaneously uses most of the wellbore, has oil rates that will rival SAGD.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Ayasse has spent 51 years in research and technology development.
After 13 years with Dow Chemical Canada in research and research management, he joined the Petroleum Recovery Institute in 1985 as Chief Research Officer and Executive Director. In 1998, he was appointed President and C.E.O. In 1999 Conrad established Canada Chemical Corporation to conduct petroleum and environmental research: he opened a private research laboratory in 2001. Dr. Ayasse holds over 30 patents in the areas of water flooding, enhanced oil recovery, drilling and completions, CO2 and H2S recovery, in situ upgrading and gas conversion to diesel. He was V.P. Technology with Whitesands and Petrobank Energy from 2004-2014 during development of the THAI Process.
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