Synthesis

The impact of using EM for SAGD monitoring is two-fold. First, the results show that they survey is sensitive even to small steam chambers and thus allows the survey to be useful from the moment SAGD steaming starts. Secondly, the survey clearly detects relatively small changes in steam chamber growth, as shown by the recovery of the middle chamber at the latest time-step. This experiment indicates that the combination of surface transmitters and borehole receivers can provide updates about steam chamber growth over time and the 3D inversion of the data can readily recover changes in the chambers. This type of information could be valuable to production engineers and ultimately improve production efficiency by identifying regions where oil is not being produced.