Seismicity and Casing Failures Due to Steam Stimulation in Oil Sands

This paper describes observations of seismicity and casing failures associated with steam stimulation operations at Imperial Oil Ltd.’s Cold Lake oil field in Alberta, Canada. A total of 11 oil-producing pads were monitored over a 1–2 year period using 3-component geophones cemented at depths ranging from 160 m to 400 m and data acquisition systems with a flat frequency response up to 1.5 kHz. Most of the seismicity was detected during the steaming operations and was located in the formation overlying the oil-bearing layer. Some activity was observed in the shales above, however, the reservoir itself showed almost no evidence of seismicity. The estimated seismic moment of the observed events was in the range 105–107 N·m ( 2.7BMB 1.3). According to a theoretical model (TALEBI et al., 1998) and in situ observations, the seismic source corresponding to casing failure events should be well described by a dipole registering seismic moment in the order of 2 · 106 N·m. Seismic signals of a total of four observed casing failures were analyzed. The partial failures produced seismic moments slightly lower than this value while total failures were stronger by about one order of magnitude. The use of the SV:SH amplitude ratio, in conjunction with accurate source locations, provided a robust technique for the detection of casing failures.