Optimal Strategy for Imperial Oil's Cold Lake Facilities

Huang, Huaxiong (2000) Optimal Strategy for Imperial Oil's Cold Lake Facilities. Canadian Industrial Problem Solving Workshops > 4th IPSW [Edmonton 29/5/2000 - 3/6/2000].

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Abstract/Summary

Optimizing the performance of the entire Cold Lake system seems to be an impossible task at first. It was therefore decided that solving a scaled-down version of the problem would be more productive, and help understand the full problem better and identify suitable mathematical models.

The first part of the report summarizes the discussions and the models proposed for a four-well problem. Because the models are non-linear, one of their major draw-backs is that they quickly become very computationally expensive, and are impractical for the number of wells at Cold Lake.

The second part of the report discusses a new approach to the problem, where it has been formulated as a linear programming problem, and its size is independent on the number of wells. Results for a test case are presented.

Item Type:	Study Group Report
Study Group:	Canadian Industrial Problem Solving Workshops > 4th IPSW [Edmonton 29/5/2000 - 3/6/2000]
Company Name:	Imperial Oil Resources
Industrial Sector:	Energy and utilities
Additional Contributors:	Alspach, Brian and Calin, Anton and Ben-Zvi, Amos and Biswanger, Kyle and Cao, Yongqiang and Carling, Glynis and Liang, Dong and Liang, Margaret and Mufeed, Mahmoud and Muldowney, Jim and Naserasr, Reza and Paulhus, Marc and Popescu, Cristina and Powojowksi, Miro and Rout, Bruce and Shah, Nikhil and Stark, Shane and Vassilev, Tzvetalin
ID Code:	162
Deposited By:	Michele Taroni
Deposited On:	07 October 2008

Problem Statement

At Cold Lake, Alberta, Imperial Oil uses a cyclic steam simulation process to produce heavy oil from oil sand formations. Oil, water, and gas are produced; the water and gas are recycled into the steam and oil treatment processes. There are 3200 wells still active in their field, so their problem is highly complex. The goal is to optimize the performance of this system, taking into account the interdependencies in the system and that there are varying time delays in the process.

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