Using Daily 4D Seismic to Build a Mechanistic Reservoir Model for Effective Steam Injection Operation

At Peace River Pad 31 production history matching and legacy seismic provide a set of models that poorly constrain the areal distribution of reservoir changes during steam injection and are otherwise not predictive due to the detail required in a full simulation combined with the small amount of relevant data available. Here we explore the use of “mechanistic reservoir models”, which are simplified models built to better understand underlying reservoir processes over an area of interest during a limited operational time window. To promote stimulation in the South of the pad a short CSS cycle was executed to supplement the ongoing top-down steam drive. In addition to the usual production surveillance data (pressures, rates), daily seismic vintages are used to first define and then better constrain the mechanistic model. With the model we address several questions related to the extent of stimulation, pad connectivity, and pressure behavior to improve the effectiveness of pad operations. Specific recommendations and findings include:

• an estimate of the duration of the injection and subsequent steam soak phase
• a recommendation to shut-in a neighboring producer during the production phase
• an estimate of the stimulated area, which is important for operations planning