Simulation of the Bishop steam foam pilot

A simple model of steam foam transport is presented and applied to the Shell Kern River Bishop pilot. The only adjustable parameter in the model is an effective surfactant partition coefficient that accounts for surfactant losses and inefficiencies of foam generation, and determines foam propagation rate. Once this partition coefficient is calibrated to match observed foam growth in the pilots, the simulator correctly predicts an incremental 5.5 percent OOIP recovery due to steam foam and additional 3 percent OOIP due to infill wells. 'What-if' simulations using an 'enhanced' steam foam (twice as strong as AOS-1618, propagates 20 percent faster and reduces ROS by 7 percent) show a dramatic increase in incremental oil recovery (17 versus 5.5 percent OOIP in the Bishop pilot) and a dramatic reduction in surfactant requirement (5 versus 15 lbs AOS/Bbl incremental oil).