SPE 165518

Integral Completion Technique for Heavy Oil Thermal Recovery

Hui Yue, Wei Pang* (corresponding author), Youzhi Duan, Tongyi Zhang, Zuqing He, Dawei Deng, Qian Hou,
Juan Du, Xu Zhao, Xiaoxu Feng, Sinopec Research Institute of Petroleum Engineering
Copyright 2013, Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Heavy Oil Conference Canada held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 1113 June 2013.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its
officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to
reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

Abstract
Nowadays, the annual heavy oil production is more than 15 million tons in China and more than 60% of which are developed
by cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) technology. Vacuum insulated tubing (VIT) with thermal packer is the mostly adopted
thermal insulation manner during steam injection progress. This usually leads to two major problems. One is casing integrity
issues like casing crack, casing collapse, and cement sheath damage induced by thermal packers failure or cyclic casing as
Well as cement heating. Another problem is frequent injection and production strings transformation, and this leads to
operation cost increasing and high temperature production time wasting especially when CSS is of short cycle in super-heavy
oil or thin thickness reservoirs.
In order to solve the above two problems, the vacuum insulated casing (VIC) and relevant integral completion technique are
researched taking well completion, heat insulation and hereafter production into consideration simultaneously rather than
separately. This completion technique injects steam by VIC while not by VIT and produces in normal tubing, thus eliminates
the thermal packers failure problems, meanwhile, simplifies the injection and production pipe conversion process and saves
production time. VICs heat loss and steam quality along wellbore are compared with that of VIT. The related techniques like
cementing, perforation while adopting VIC are also studied.
Field trials in Henan oilfield in China verify this completions suitability for CSS in heating insulation, production
performance and economics compared with normal method of CSS. The completion provides a long-term Well integrity
solution for thermal Well recovery not only by CSS, also by other thermal manners like SAGD. Also, it can play an
important role in heat proof exploitation of other resources like gas hydrate and geothermal energy.
Introduction
Estimated in-place heavy oil reserves are about 2 billion tons in China, majorly located in Shengli Oilfield, Xinjiang Oilfield,
Liaohe Oilfield, Henan Oilfield, and etc. With associated exploration and production techniques maturing and more and more
attention paying, the production of heavy oil, as one kind of unconventional resources, reaches 15 million tons, and nearly
60% of the heavy oil production is by adopting cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) method (Xiuluan Li, et al, 2012).

SPE 165518

CSS (also known as huff and puff or steam soak process) was fist applied by accident in Venezuela in 1959 (Trebolle, et al,
1993) to recover bitumen from tar sands. Different from steam flooding, CSS is for one Well both as injector and producer.
One cycle of CSS can be divided into three stages: steam injection period, soaking period, and production period, as
illustrated in Fig.1. The major intention of CSS is bringing thermal energy to downhole by steam injection and then heating
the formation, thus, to enhance heavy oils mobility by significantly reducing oil viscosity. Dominant heat transfer
mechanisms are different in different CSS stages (Eshragh Ghoodjani, et al, 2012): conduction and forced convection during
steam injection period, conduction and a minimum convection effect during soaking period, and counter current of
convection-conduction during production period. Reducing heat loss in Wellbore from surface to downhole in steam injection
period is of vital importance, and unscientific wellbore heat loss controlling measurements will lead to bad well production
performance.
As shown in Fig.2, there are roughly three kinds of steam injection techniques by far: injection steam by bare tubing, by bare
tubing with thermal packer, and by vacuum insulated tubing (VIT) with thermal packer. Of course, there are some sub
inventories for the latter techniques. For example, when we inject steam by bare tubing with thermal packer, we can infill
nitrogen, CO2, or only air in the annuli between tubing and casing above the thermal packer. Thanks to previous theoretical
and experimental researches, we can now easily compare these techniques wellbore heat transfer performance by adopting
mathematical equations in relevant lituratures (i.e., H.J.Ramey, 1959; J.H. Azzola, 2004; M.Hausner, 2004). Fig.3
demonstrates the heat exchange process and between wellbore and formation in a vertical well. Based on this demonstration
and using the basic input of Table 1, the heat loss ratio and steam quality along the wellbore can be analyzed, as shown in
Fig.4 and Fig.5. From the comparison in the above figures, we can get the following observations,
(1) Injection steam by VIT with thermal packer presents overwhelming advantage over the other two techniques, because
the heat loss of bare tubing, bare tubing + thermal packer, and VIT + thermal packer are separately 48.7%, 29.8%, 12.2%
in the downhole at 1000m;
(2) Taking into expenditure and operation simplicity into account, if one well is shallower than 300m, injection steam using
the bare tubing is tolerable because it can keep downhole steam quality within 0.41 and steam loss within 16%; while
injection steam using bare tubing + thermal packer may be a good choice if the well depth is between 300m to 600m
considering the downhole steam quality and steam loss within 0.4 and 18% individually; but, if the well is deeper than
600m, we recommend VIT + thermal packer steam injection technique.
(3) Under nowadays high oil prices, steam heat transfer efficiency and economic return-on-revenue drives us to steam our
heavy oils wells by VIT in combination with thermal packer.
However, superior though it is, VIT with thermal packer technique has some limitations as follows,
(1) Mechanical problems: Thermal packers failure, which is usually frequent, will cause steam leaking off into the annuli of
VIT and casing, and that will severely damage the casing and cement integrity; sometimes this problem is so serious that
it is impossible to continue subsequent steaming cycles;
(2) Workover problems: the VIT is normally pulled and moved to another well after one wells steam injection operation,
and then install conventional tubings to produce oil. This workover needs service rigs and occupy the high temperature
period that should have been used to produce. One cycle is nearly 90 days in Henan oilfields shallow reservoir wells,
and the workover of pulling VIT takes 3 to 10 days, this is a significant waste of high temperature period.
(3) Economic problems: if the VIT is left in the well for producing after steam injection, the investment must be increased;
meanwhile, eccentric wear will decrease VITs life.

SPE 165518

In order to solve the above problems, the strategy of steam injection by VIC is proposed and related assisting techniques are
also studied to ponder wellbore heat guarantee issue simultaneously with well completion.
Integral VIC Completion Strategy
VIC
We use the VIC to replace oil casing above oil formation, and it is cemented as normal oil casing and it cannot be pulled out
as a VIT, as depicted in Fig.6. Meanwhile, in order to let pump and tubing go through, VIC must has bigger diameter inner
pipe and outer pipe. Nonetheless, A VIC body is quite similar with VIT in very aspects, such as design theory (pipe-in-pipe),
vacuum multilayer insulation systems, materials, bakeout process, welding, and et al. In some extent, we can say VIC equals
to VIT in manufacturing; but VIC is also different from VIT in work function and the role it plays in one wells whole life.
We have to consider VIC as an internal part of well completion while not only a wellbore heat insulation measurement.
The advantages of VIC over VIT are as follows,
(1) There is no packer combined with VIC, so it alleviates packer failure and well integrity issues given the VIC is of good
mechanical performance, such as high temperature and heat stress enduring capacity.
(2) It avoids workover caused by the VIT and production tubing exchanging, which greatly enhanced oil wells production
performance and economics because of high temperature producing period saving and service rigs firing.
(3) It increases steam flow area which reduces friction drop in steam injection period.
On the comprehensive consideration of safety, economic investment, manufacturing, and wellbore heat insulation
performance as well as China heavy oil Wells production condition (low daily rate, with an average of about 10t/d), the VIC
with 5 1/2 outer pipe and 4 1/2 inner pipe is designed, as shown in Fig.7, and the key parameters are tabulated in Table2.
Well cementing
Because we will perforate the formation interval, we use VIC above oil formation while below is production casing in order
to save the investment of VIC. Two kinds of casing cementing usually lead to casing eccentric issues in cementing process.
Aiming at obtaining good cementing performance, we come up with the following solutions,
(1) Keep production casings inner diameter the same with that of VIC, that is 101.6mm, to facilitate well cementing,
perforating and string tabular going through;
(2) Because we design the VIC with connection on outer pipe, the inner diameter near the coupler vicinity is exaggerated, as
shown in Fig.8. Therefore, one kind of elongated cement plug is custom made to prevent sticking near the exaggeration
area;
(3) Elastic centralizer with bigger diameter is designed to centralize the production casing, as depicted in Fig.9;
(4) The top connecting collar and cementing head are modified to meet the qualification of VIC thread and elongated
cement plug.
Perforating
To fit the production casing with 4 1/2 OD, the 89 type perforated gun with SDP40RDX bullet is chosen.
Sand Control
Sand out in heavy oil reservoir is always a big problem. We recommend using gravel packing, meanwhile, premium screen is
installed to control sand and improve permeability near the wellbore.

SPE 165518

Wellhead
From Fig.10, we can notice that steam is injected through VIC while oil is produced through the tubing. Switch between
steam injection and oil production can be easily implemented at the wellhead. This greatly reduces workover of string pulling
out and down and saves producing time.
Wellbore heat insulation performance
Fig.11 and Fig.12 separately compares the heat loss and steam quality of steam injection by VIC over that by three other
injection techniques. The heat loss is slightly higher when steam injection by VIC than by VIT, while steam quality is a little
lower. So we can conclude that VIC steam injection can get nearly identical wellbore heat insulation performance.
Field Application
By far, more than 10 wells have applied the integral VIC well completion and wellbore heat keeping technique in China. All
of these wells succeeded in all the operations of well cementing, perforating, sand control and switching between steam
injection and oil production, and this verifies the techniques feasibility as well as operations simplicity and viability.
Among these Wells, the production data of Well A is quite persuasive because its reservoir parameters and fluid property are
nearly the same with Well B (as shown in Table 3) which adopting bare tubing with one thermal packer as steam injection
method, and Well A exhibits obvious superiority over Well B. Both Wells are vertical well and the oil layer is about 208m in
depth. Oil viscosity under formation temperature is 16344mPa.s which belongs to super heavy oil category.
Well A has experienced 5 cycles while Well B 7 Cycles and detailed information such as production rate, Oil-Steam-Ratio
(OSR) in every cycle can be found in Table 4. As illustrated in Table 4 and Fig.5, Well A produced 1496.1 tons of oil in 5
cycles, but Well B only produced 1249.6 tons of oil in 7 cycles. Average daily oil rate and OSR of Well A reach 4.03t and
0.413 separately. Compared with Well B, Well As average daily oil rate is 1.056t higher, average OSR is 0.19 higher, while
average cycle duration 22.18 days longer, and surface oil temperature 

67563@ All in all, the integral VIC completion
technique brings us satisfactory oil production performance which results in economic benefits, thus, it has broad application
potential in heavy oil reservoirs.
Conclusions
Based on the synthesis comparison of normal used thermal insulation techniques in heavy oil steam injection process, VIC
technique integrated with completion and thermal insulation is proposed, and field pilot application has been conducted. The
following conclusions can be drawn.
Though have shown their application success, the present thermal insulation techniques are isolated with well completion
process, thus they inevitably meet some thorny mechanics problems that have to do workover causing high temperature
period and investment waste.
VIC technique bridges the connection between thermal insulation and well completion and view thermal insulation as part of
well completion that can be thoroughly pondered among the wells whole life. Field pilot application verified this techniques
feasibility, operations simplicity, and insulation performances reliability as well as economics efficiency.
Not only in heavy oil development, may VIC technique also have huge potential application value in deep water wells,
hydrate prevention, geothermal resources and etc.

SPE 165518

Acknowledgements
Financial support from SINOPEC project (NO. P12074) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also would like to thank
Sinopec Research Institute of Petroleum Engineering for the permission to publish this paper.
References
1. Xiuluan Li, Yongbin Wu, Xin Zhao, et al. A Cyclic-Steam Injection in Fuyv Reservoir, Daqing. SPE 151976-MS, 2012.
2.

Trebolle, R. L., Chalot, J.P., and R. Colmenaras. The Orinoco Heavy-Oil Belt Pilot Projects and Development Strategy.
SPE 25798-MS, 1993.

3.

S.Y. Hsu, K.H. Searles, Y. Liang, et al. Casing Integrity Study for Heavy-Oil Production in Cold Lake. SPE 134329-MS,
2010.

4.

Eshragh Ghoodjani, Riyaz Kharrat, Manouchehr Vossoughi, et al. A Review on Thermal Enhanced Heavy Oil Recovery
from Fractured Carbonate Reservoirs. SPE 150147-MS, 2012.

5.

J.H. Azzola, P.D. Pattillo, J.F. Richey, et al. The Heat Transfer Characteristics of Vacuum Insulated Tubing. SPE 90151PA, 2004.

6.

M.Hausner, M.Dixon. Optimized Design of Pipe-in-Pipe Systems. SPE 87632-PA, 2004.

7.

H.J.Ramey. Trans AIME, 1959.

SPE 165518

Fig.1 CSS operation stages: (1) steam injection, (2) soaking and (3) producing (from S.Y. Hsu, et al, 2010)

(a ) injection by bare tubing (b) injection by bare tubing with thermal packer (c) injection by VIT with thermal packer
Fig.2 Schematic of 3 kinds of steam injection techniques

Fig.3 Vertical wellbore schematic of steam injection by VIT

SPE 165518

Table1 Basic Parameter Values for 3 Kinds of Steam Injection Techniques Comparison
Wellbore

Steam (@ surface)

Thermal conductivity

Parameter

Value

Parameter

Value

Parameter

Value

Casing OD

177.8mm

Temperature

350

VIT

0.0104 W/(m)

VIT OD

114.3

Pressure

10MPa

Annuli

0.023 W/(m)

-1

VIT ID

76

Quality

0.7

Cement

0.933 W/(m)

-1

Injection Rate

120m /d

Formation

1.73 W/(m)

Fig.4 Heat loss along the vertical Wellbore of 3 steam injection techniques

Fig.5 Steam quality along the vertical Wellbore of 3 steam injection techniques

-1

-1

SPE 165518

Fig.6 Schematic of VIC as part of Well completion

Fig.7 Schematic of VIC body

Parameter

Table2 Key Parameters of Proposed VIC

Value

Parameter

Value

Insulation Grade

D E

Apparent Thermal Conductivity

0.0104 W/(m)

Length

9-10m

Internal Strength

Outer Pipe OD

139.7mm

Collapse Strength

Inner Pipe ID

101.6mm

Outer Pipe

139.77.72mm

Coupler

154235

Inner Pipe

114.36.35mm

Thread

5 1/2 BCSG

-1

32MPa (normal temperature)

20MPa (injection steam)
23(normal temperature)
21(injection steam)

SPE 165518

Fig.8 Schematic of VIC with connection on outer pipe

Fig.9 Schematic of elastic centralizer with bigger diameter

Fig.10 Schematic of Wellhead of steam injection and oil producing switch

60
VIC
VIT+pa cker
ba re tubing+pa cker
ba re tubing

50
40
Hea t
loss, 30
%
20
10
0
0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Depth,m
Fig.11 Heat loss comparison of VIC over three other kinds of steam injection techniques

10

SPE 165518

0.7
0.6
0.5
Steam 0.4
quality
0.3

VIC
VIT+packer

0.2

bare tubing+packer

bare tubing

0.1
0
0

100

200

300

400

500
600
Depth, m

700

800

900

1000

Fig.12 Steam quality comparison of VIC over three other kinds of steam injection techniques

Table3 Reservoir Parameters of Well A and Well B

Well Name

Net Pay

Perforated Interval

Porosity

Permeability

Oil Saturation

Well A

3.6m

3.4m

34.10%

3 Darcy

67.02%

Well B

3.6m

3.4m

33.68%

2.3 Darcy

65.57%

Table4 Production Comparison of Well A and Well B

Well
Name
Cycle I
Cycle II
Cycle III
Cycle IV
Cycle V

Injection
Amount,
tons

Liquid,

Oil,

Duration,

tons

tons

days

Daily

Liquid,
tons/day

Daily Oil,
tons/day

Water
Cut,

OSR

Well A

464

133.2

67

13

10.24

5.15

50

0.144

Well B

801

336.1

153.8

47.5

7.07

3.23

54

0.192

Well A

814

457.3

264.4

56.33

8.11

4.69

42

0.325

Well B

1078

402.1

199.6

53.64

7.49

3.72

50

0.185

Well A

715

1033

598.1

144.18

7.16

4.15

42

0.837

Well B

560

344.3

143

57.37

2.49

58

0.255

Well A

1052

819

279.9

87.92

9.32

3.18

59

0.266

Well B

592

569.4

307.3

84.16

6.76

3.65

45

0.519

Well A

586

885.7

286.7

96.89

9.14

2.96

63

0.495

Well B

1183

594.7

280.8

73.23

8.12

3.83

52

0.237

Cycle VI

Well B

616

333.7

66.6

34.8

9.59

1.91

70

0.108

Cycle VII

Well B

1110

336.3

98.5

51.7

6.5

1.95

63

0.088

Well A

3631

3328.2

1496.1

79.66

8.794

4.026

51

0.413

Well B

5940

2916.6

1249.6

57.48

7.36

2.97

56

0.226

Average

SPE 165518

11

Fig.13 Comparison chart of Well A and Well B