A new developed thermal model to predict formation failure in vertical wells during steam injection

As production from mature fields declines, finding technologies to improve hydrocarbon recovery is becoming extremely important in oil and gas industry. In this regard, steam injection through injection wells has proven to be an effective method for increasing oil recovery in heavy oil reservoirs. The implementation of this approach, however, raised the issue of wellbore instability due to the introduction of thermal stresses in the formations around the injection wells. In this work, a new stability model that covers the effect of thermal stresses and considers three-dimensional rock failure mechanism has been established for vertical wells. The developed model has been verified in two field cases. The model results have shown a good match with the actual field observations. The results of the study show that applying steam injection will lead to a significant dropping in the stability of the formations that can be predict by the developed geomechanical model.