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SCPRE18

SAGD 101 in the McMurray – Cartooned for the Layman!

Instructors: Doug Walsh
Date: May 7, 2008
Max. Attendance: 50 Participants
Course Fee: $500

Venue: TBA

A host of Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) projects are now either operating or soon will be operating in the McMurray formation of the Bonnyville / Fort McMurray region of north eastern Alberta.

This one day workshop will attempt to reduce the complex geology of the McMurray fm and the complexities of the SAGD process to an understandable form, using colored sketches and animations in powerpoint. The highly visual form of the presentation should give participants in the workshop a library of mental pictures that will be useful for understanding and applying the fundamentals of SAGD. This presentation should allow newcomers to SAGD to easily gain a good grasp of the fundamental principles of  the process, while those more experienced in this segment of the industry should also be able to glean insights into a wide array of SAGD related subjects including: an overview of the paleogeography of the McMurray fm, basic sedimentology of the McMurray, the geological model for selected SAGD projects near Bonnyville, a review of the history of SAGD, an analysis and an update of Butlers equation, how to drill SAGD well pairs, how to complete SAGD well pairs, how to  start up SAGD well pairs and how to operate SAGD well pairs.

A supplemental study of 3 selected cores from Foster Creek will be used to support the class room description of the McMurray fm and also to demonstrate how variations in the reservoir impact the way SAGD works in the real world. This will be discussed in light of the concepts which will have been outlined in the lecture portion of the workshop.

Doug Walsh  was born, raised and educated in Calgary, Doug is a U of C graduate, BSc. Geology 1973. Doug worked "a bottom up" approach starting with summer jobs on seismic crews while in high school and then, while as undergraduate at U of C, Doug worked summers in field assistant positions with Pan Arctic Oils, measuring section and mapping the geology of the High Arctic. He also spent a summer in the foothills and front ranges around Mt. Hannington west of Grand Prairie doing the same type of work.

Doug rough necked on the big rigs in the Alberta foothills around Lodgepole and Edson for a year.

Over 20 years of well site work took Doug across western Canada, to the High Arctic  and to Argentina for a year. For the last eight years he has contracted to EnCana, working on their Foster Creek, Christina Lake, Borealis and Senlac SAGD projects. While there, he has worked in operations and as a  member of a  number of  in house task force teams which have been created to solve problems unique to thermal and SAGD projects, including design of  suitable drilling fluids for the oil sands, sand control, slot design, ranging technology and formation shale responses in thermally active areas.