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Vol. 59 No. 4

April 2007

Heavy Oil

Investigation of Drainage-Height Effect on Production Rate in the Vapor-Extraction Process

The full-length paper presents the results of a new set of vapor-extraction (vapex) -process experiments in a newly designed very-large physical model. The results are in good agreement with the trend of previous experiments in smaller models. The previously proposed scaleup relationship adequately predicts the results obtained with the new physical model. The new results were used to improve the previously reported empirical scaleup correlation for the vapex process. Experiments with different sandpacks reconfirm square-root functionality of the dead-oil production rate to the permeability.

 

View a Synopsis of SPE 101684 published in JPT.

This article, written by Assistant Technology Editor Karen Bybee, contains highlights of paper SPE 101684, "Further Investigation of Drainage-Height Effect on Production Rate in Vapex," by A.J. Yazdani, SPE, and B.B. Maini, SPE, U. of Calgary, prepared for the 2006 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, San Antonio, Texas, 24-27 September.

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