Evaluation of Two Forms of Insulated Tubing

Abstract Insulated tubing is widely used in steam injection wells for thermal oil recovery applications, where it serves to reduce heat loss along the wellbore and maximize energy transfer to the reservoir. Quantifying this improvement can be difficult due to uncertainties related to the insulation performance, as well as the completion and formation thermal properties. In this work, two different forms of insulated tubing were tested in a controlled environment to provide useful thermal properties for modelling and to quantify effectiveness. These included Vacuum Insulated Tubing (VIT) and Advanced Insulated Tubing (AIT). Results were reproduced and interpreted with the help of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. A bulk thermal conductivity value was obtained for each type of tubing, which was used in a simplified heat transfer model. The resulting model was then applied to field data from a recent installation in a steam injector well to quantify total heat losses. This calibrated model demonstrated that with the implementation of insulated tubing, a reduction in heat loss of 67% was obtained as compared to using bare pipe only. Because the field trial is only four months at the time of this paper, the focus is on the short-term benefits of insulated tubing with the potential for a future update once sufficient data is gathered, including observed SOR differences and changes in insulation tubing performance over time