Loren J Lederhos

US Patent:

20020007947, Jan 24, 2002

Filed:

Mar 23, 2001

Appl. No.:

09/816848

Inventors:

Anilkumar Patel - Fremont CA, US
Charles Guthrie - Richmond CA, US
Loren Lederhos - Bakersfield CA, US
James Ouimette - Petaluma CA, US

International Classification:

E21B047/00
E21B043/24

US Classification:

166/252100, 166/250150, 166/272300, 166/303000

Abstract:

The invention includes a method of scheduling cyclic steaming of a group of petroleum-containing wells including: inputting to a production-predicting means a group of data describing at least in part the past cyclic steaming and resulting production of a group of petroleum-containing wells; processing the data in the production-predicting means and outputting a group of production predictions for the group of wells during a future steaming cycle; inputting the group of production predictions into an optimization means; inputting an initial steaming cycle schedule for the group of wells into the optimization means; processing the group of production predictions and the initial steaming cycle schedule in the optimization means by the steps including: determining a ranking for the initial steaming cycle schedule for the group of production predictions against a pre-determined ranking criteria; producing a group of new steaming cycle schedules based on the ranking of the initial steaming cycle a schedule optimization algorithm; determining a ranking for the new steaming cycle schedules against the pre-determined ranking criteria; repeating the production of new steaming cycle schedules and determining ranking steps until some pre-determined termination criteria is met; and outputting a final steaming cycle schedule.