Well Pads
& Pipelines

Vista worked with its client to design the equipment and systems for a 4-pad, toe-to-heel-air-injection (THAI) in-situ heavy oil recovery project near Conklin, Alberta.

The 10,000 barrel per day project included 5 well-pairs for each of the 4 pads and an additional pad with cooling and oil/water separation and air/steam production.

Vista provided comprehensive FEED services as well as project management, quality surveillance, construction management and commissioning and start-up assistance. Vista also managed contractor bidding, cost control and scheduling requirements for the project.

This project involved the engineering design of pads and pipelines for a commercial-scale facility incorporating proprietary toe-to-heel air injection (THAI) technology utilized in an in-situ pilot plant. Of special interest in terms of pipeline design was the challenge of handling large volumes of sand entrained in the emulsion: Vista ensured that a delicate balance was reached to keep liquid velocities low enough to avoid pipeline erosion, yet high enough to avoid sand deposition.

The project’s focus was the engineering design of four pads with five well pairs each, complete with wellhead separators. Two of the pads acted as accumulation points for oil emulsion and also accommodated other equipment, including air compressors, tanks, glycol heaters and steam generation equipment.

Aboveground pipelines connecting the new pads to the central processing facility (CPF) included a 20″ sour gas line, a 6″ sour oil emulsion line, a 6″ produced water line, a 12″ high-pressure air line, a 6″ boiler feedwater line, a 4″ fuel gas line and a 4″ recovered condensate line. An existing 3″ fuel pipeline located under one of the new pad sites required Vista to reroute the existing line.

This existing pipeline was located under the new pad site, and commercial expansion plans posed a risk of long-term service interruption for the facility. In response, Vista rerouted the existing pipeline away from the new pad site, enabling the facility to maintain production levels while the new steel pipeline was tied in from the connection point to the rack piping.

In order to convert existing facilities and infrastructure associated with the existing waterflood to a miscible flood, the client chose Vista to complete the design of a buried pipeline and ancillary facilities including 39 km of pipe, pipeline risers, new piping headers, and meter stations.

Pipe of the required specification and quantity for this project generally takes six months or more to fabricate and coat, depending on mill availability. However, the project timeline required the pipe within two to three months. In addition to time constraints as a result of a fast-approaching end to the winter muskeg construction season, pipe mills were reluctant to produce a small quantity of such specialized pipe.

Vista was able to meet all of these challenges and successfully secured all the materials in a timeframe that allowed the project to proceed in accordance with the client’s schedule.

Vista conducted the engineering and procurement work for a client who was expanding its polymer injection from the pilot phase to a commercial operation. The project required approximately 900 m3/day of polymer injection to nine injection wells located at 2 separate pad locations.

Major equipment for the project included polymer hydration skid, water treatment facility, various 2,000-barrel water tanks, MCC expansion, and polymer injection skid. A Fiberspar pipeline of approximately 500 metres in length was constructed to bring polymer to a five-pump injection skid at one pad site for 5 injection wells at that location. Water for the hydration process will come from source water wells. The use of produced water from one of the client’s batteries required the installation of 2 pumps at the battery location to transport water to the polymer hydration skid via 5,000 metres of new pipeline.