Southern Pacific Completes Project Start-Up With Steam To Second Well Pad At Mckay

abarrelfull wrote on 19 Jul 2012 05:19
Tags: canada n-america oil-sands southern-pacific upstream

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Southern Pacific (“STP” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that steam began circulating through the second pad of six steam assisted gravity drainage (“SAGD”) well pairs at the STP-McKay Thermal Project on July 13. This brings the total SAGD well pair count currently being steamed to twelve. Steam began circulating to the first pad of six well pairs on July 1. Steam will now be circulated through all twelve SAGD wellbores for a period of three to four months, after which bitumen production is scheduled to begin.

After its first 15 days of official operation, the facility has been performing very well. The steam requirements for the wellbores over the period have been delivered at an impressive 98.5% ‘on-time’ load factor. This load factor is expected to improve over the next few months as the usual start-up fixes are ironed out.

All components of the facility have now been fully commissioned and are in use. The central process facility is generating all of its own power from two of three co-generators (the third commissioned and on standby). In addition to steam being generated, the return fluids from the wellbores are being separated, and the produced water is being treated and recycled for steam generation.

It took only three days for steam to reach the ends of the wellbores in the first pad, and consistent circulation of steam through the wellbores has occurred since. Temperatures and pressures within the well pairs are behaving as expected.

Byron Lutes, President and CEO of Southern Pacific commented, “I continue to be most impressed at the work ethic and attitudes of our field operations team, especially over the last few weeks as they have brought this new project on stream in a very safe and effective manner. They have done a tremendous job for us.”

• Southern Pacific Completes Project Start-Up With Steam To Second Well Pad At Mckay

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