Ways to get more SAGD with less

In a time of flagging oil prices, how do you get more recovery and production with less cost?

A SAGD operator recently explained that he can get more with less capital and effort by changing his well spacing and pad count.

Reduce well count

He's playing with well density and inter-well spacing. He claims that experience with 4-D seismic and temperature monitoring has shown that he can safely increase inter-well spacing, lengthen horizontal length, and reach farther from surface pads without giving up production and recovery.

Reducing well count by increasing inter-well spacing is opposite to the trends of the recent past. Some operators have reduced well spacing to 25 m. This operator is convinced that he can recover as much with more than 5 times that inter-well spacing.

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Reduce surface pad count

This operator also believes that using optimized pad layout will improve his economics. He is using fewer surface pads, but each surface pad may have wells into more than one down-hole drainage box.

It's a farther reach, but he believes that the tougher drilling challenge is cheaper than surface pads.

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Tags: Thermal, Heavy Oil

Granger Low  26 Jul 2016

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