Bedding-scale geomodelling for effective permeability estimation in the Upper McMurray Formation, NE Alberta, Canada

The McMurray Formation is one of the most significant bitumen deposits in Canadian oil sands. Bitumen-bearing sand intervals deposited and reworked in fluvial, tidal or estuarine environments result in heterogeneous sediment distributions comprising clean sands and low-permeability muddy laminae or mud drapes. These interlayers increase the difficulty in estimating reservoir permeability, which is a critical geological parameter to predict the performance of in situ thermal processes of the oil sands projects. In this paper, we describe a bedding-scale geomodelling and simulation workflow using core images, core-plug and Vshale logs to estimate the effective permeability (K-h, K-v) in the Upper McMurray Formation. Details of five steps in this workflow are presented. To show the general applicability of this workflow, three pay-zone facies from tidal-channel infilled deposits of the Mackay River Project, CNPC, were selected to demonstrate this sedimentary process mimicking bedding-scale geomodelling strategy. The results of effective permeability estimation have the potential to improve history matching in flow simulations and performance forecasting.