Energy Transfer in Tertiary Oil Recovery by Steam Injection

The purpose of this investigation was to study energy and mass transfer in thermal oil recovery in porous media. A set of multistage laboratory tests was performed to find the effects of temperature on the viscosity of waterflood residual heavy oil during steam injection. Sand packed models were utilized to investigate the porosity, permeability, and sand size distribution on the recovery of waterflood residual oil. An oil bank was formed in steam injection during the tertiary oil recovery which results very high oil recovery efficiency. Steam injection was found to be very effective, compared to coldand hot-water flooding, for the recovery of heavy oil. A mathematical model was developed to predict the temperature profile during the steam injection process. Satisfactory agreement is achieved between the temperature profile, predicted from the model, and the experimental results

Keywords:

EOR , Porous media , Temperature profile , SAGD