What is SAGD drilling?
Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), is a drilling technique used to extract heavy crude oil which is buried too deep or otherwise burdensome to access. The process was created by the Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority (AOSTRA) as an efficient means of recovering difficult-to-access oil reserves.
What does SAGD stand for?
Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage
Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD)
How does SAGD oil extraction work?
Steam assisted gravity drainage or SAGD is a method that is widely used to extract bitumen from underground oil sands deposits. This method involves forcing steam into sub-surface oil sands deposits to heat the bitumen locked in the sand, allowing it to flow well enough to be extracted.
What is a SAGD facility?
Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD; “Sag-D”) is an enhanced oil recovery technology for producing heavy crude oil and bitumen. It is an advanced form of steam stimulation in which a pair of horizontal wells is drilled into the oil reservoir, one a few metres above the other.
Is Sagd the same as fracking?
Behind these tectonic shifts are new technologies, some of which have quickly become well-known. They include hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and horizontal drilling, in the case of shale gas and shale oil, and steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), in the case of oil sands.
What is the SAGD process in enhanced oil recovery?
Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) is an enhanced oil recovery technology for producing heavy crude oil and bitumen involving an advanced form of steam stimulation. Two horizontal wells are drilled into the oil reservoir, one a few meters above the other.
How does SAGD affect the environment?
But a recent round-up of SAGD projects by the Pembina Institute, a Calgary-based environmental non-governmental organization, finds that SAGD has much higher carbon and related emissions than oilsands mines because of the intense energy required to pump large volumes of high-pressure steam underground.
Is Sagd environmentally friendly?
How does Sagd affect the environment?
Why are SAGD rigs used in the oil sands?
The process was created by the Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority (AOSTRA) as an efficient means of recovering difficult-to-access oil reserves. With the rise in costs of oil production over the years and the increased demand, there has been a replacement of traditional oil drilling rigs with SAGD.
Is the SAGD process economically attractive to oil companies?
With the low cost of drilling horizontal well pairs, and the very high recovery rates of the SAGD process (up to 60% of the oil in place), SAGD is economically attractive to oil companies.
How are steam assisted gravity drainage ( SAGD ) wells drilled?
SAGD requires a pair of horizontal wells drilled from a central well pad. A horizontal well is dug at an angle of at least eighty degrees to a vertical bore well. This type of well has advantages over traditional vertical drilling as adjustments can allow the bit to drill in non-vertical directions.
Where did the steam injection process for SAGD come from?
The SAGD process of heavy oil or bitumen production is an enhancement on the steam injection techniques originally developed to produce heavy oil from the Kern River Oil Field of California.
