Thermodynamic and Economic Analysis Between Organic Rankine Cycle and Kalina Cycle for Waste Heat Recovery From Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage Process in Oilfield

Abstract

A thermodynamic and economic comparative analysis are presented for waste heat recovery (WHR) from the heavy oil production with steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process employing organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and Kalina cycle (KC). The liquefied natural gas (LNG) cold energy is employed as the cold source. Thus, a combined cooling heating and power system is proposed. The effect of key parameters on thermodynamic performance is investigated. The results showed that increasing the turbine inlet temperature (TIT), ORC is more appropriate for WHR in SAGD process than KC, but KC provides better energy use and exergy efficiency, while the reverse situation occurs when the evaporation pressure is increased. The compression ratio has little effect on the cold exergy recovery efficiency of the refrigeration cycles. In addition, the total exergy destruction and the total WHR efficiency in the combined SAGD/KC are slightly higher than these in the combined SAGD/ORC. Moreover, for the TIT below 180 °C and the evaporation pressure above 6 MPa, the SAGD/KC can obtain more energy return on investment (EROI) than SAGD/ORC. The results obtained through economic analysis show that the use of the SAGD/ORC is more economical. Through the thermos-economic comparison of the two combined systems, it helps to choose different combined cycles according to the different actual operation, which can facilitate the future engineering applications.