Steam Flooding in Fractured Media

8/13/2019 Steam Flooding in Fractured Media

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STEAM FLOODING IN FRACTURED MEDIA: A REVIEW OF

MODELLING AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES

SUBMITTED BY

Mohammad Haseeb Azam

Student ID: 20500531

A Term paper submitted in Partial fulfillment of the

Requirements of

CHE 614 (Capillary and Transport Phenomena in Porous Media)

Course

Chemical Engineering Department

University of Waterloo


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................... 3

2. DESCRIPTION OF STEAM INJECTION PROCESS.................................................................. 4

3. BASIC CONCEPTS....................................................................................................................... 4

3.1 Influence of Temperature........................................................................................................ 5

3.2 Influence of Water Phase........................................................................................................ 5

3.3 Influence of the Mineral Matrix.............................................................................................. 5

3.4 Influence of Oil Composition.................................................................................................. 6

4. OIL RECOVERY MECHANISM IN FRACTURED RESERVOIRS........................................... 6

5. STEAM FLOODING IN HEAVY AND LIGHT OIL RESERVOIRS .......................................... 7

5.1 Results and Discussions.......................................................................................................... 7

5.1.1 Heavy Oil Reservoir Model............................................................................................. 7

5.1.1.1 Effective Mechanisms...................................................................................................... 8

5.1.1.2 Optimization of operational parameters......................................................................... 8

5.1.2 Light Oil Reservoir Model............................................................................................ 10

5.1.2.1 Effective mechanisms.................................................................................................... 10

5.1.2.2 Optimization of operational parameters....................................................................... 10

6. IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM INJECTION PROCESS............................................................ 12

6.1 Improved Operations............................................................................................................ 12

6.2 Use of Additives................................................................................................................... 12

6.3 Use of foams......................................................................................................................... 13

7. CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................. 13

8. REFERENCES............................................................................................................................. 15

List of Figures and Tables................................................................................................................. 17


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1. INTRODUCTIONIncrease of oil consumption and price of the crude oil in the world, and declining oil

supplies in recent years, has caused an increasing attention to heavy oil and extra-

heavy oil production methods(1)

. Heavy oil may be defined as oil with an API gravity

of less than 20oand viscosity in the range of 100-10,000 cP

(2). As the global energy

demand grows, unconventional resources are the key solution to meet the ever

growing demands as the conventional and light oil reservoirs are already depleted.

New technologies for economical heavy oil recovery as an unconventional oil

resource, has received more attention from the giant oil companies(3)

.Steam injectionis one of the well known EOR processes which have successfully been used for the

past few decades to improve the oil rate and recovery. It has wide applications for the

recovery of light and heavy oils.

Canada, Venezuela and United States, Russia, Kazakhstan, Iran, China, Oman andKuwait have the largest amount of reserves of heavy oil and bitumen reservoirs in theworld

(4) (2). In fact, a considerable portion of the heavy oil and bitumen reservoirs are

naturally fractured reservoirs (one-third of total heavy oil world-wide) which are more

complicated to produce than conventional reservoirs (5) (6)

. Current total world oil

production from EOR is approaching 3 MMBD representing about 3.5% of the daily

global oil production(7)

.

Steam flooding is applied to heavy and extra-heavy oil reservoirs; it may be used in

light oil reservoirs in which water injection does not work effectively. In Middle East

fractured carbonates, the matrix rock is commonly oil-wet or mixed wet and thereforewater flooding is not a feasible process (8)

. However, it should be noted that there are

certain parameters which must be kept in mind for efficient and economical recovery

i.e. steam-oil ratio, optimum steam temperature and steam quality(9) (4)

. The results in

various studies have shown that steam injection process has great performance and

efficiency in fractured systems. However, steam processes are not recommended in

very high permeable fractured reservoirs due to high steam-oil ratio (SOR).

Therefore, for the better understanding of the physics involved in the steam injectionprocess, it is extremely important to understand the main recovery mechanisms such

as: reduction of viscosity; thermal expansion; distillation; capillary imbibition;

solution gas; generation of CO2; and gravitational drainage

(10)

.The recovery mechanism in steam injection is based on reducing the viscosity of oil

by transferring the heat from a hot fluid (steam), to the reservoir and making heavy oil

and bitumen mobile so that they can easily flow towards the production well. Heating

of the matrix will result in oil expansion, reduction of viscosity, solution gas drive andstream stripping of intermediate hydrocarbon components

(11).

This study focuses on steam injection in naturally fractured reservoirs. A naturallyfractured reservoir is a reservoir which contains fractures that may have either positive

or negative effects on fluid flow (4)

. In fractured system heat can be transferred by

thermal conduction to the other areas of the reservoir which are not in contact with


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steam. It is obvious that steam will flow faster through the fractures compared to non-

fractured systems.

Productive heavy oil carbonate fields can be grouped into two categories: 1) low

matrix permeability, fracture dependent and 2) matrix permeability dependent

production. Fracture enhanced, low matrix permeability production is dominant and

occurs in Oman, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Egypt and includes producing fields

such as Qarn Alam in Oman and Issaran and Bakr-Amer in Egypt(12)

.In Middle Eastfractured carbonates, the matrix rock is commonly oil-wet or mix wet and therefore

water flooding is not a feasible process.

2. DESCRIPTION OF STEAM INJECTION PROCESSSteam drive involves injection of steam from well to well. It is usually designed as

continuous flooding of the reservoir by steam until the oil/steam ratio decreases belowthe economic limit. Oil/steam ratio is usually in the range of 0.1-0.4 m

3/m

3.(13)

Gas phase is present in steam injection; this causes distillation of the light components

of the oil and their movement towards the cold part of the reservoir. Increasing the

temperature of the oil reduces its viscosity, thus mobility is enhanced. Very low

values of residual oil saturations (


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1) Cracking: The cracking reactions involve the breaking of C-C bonds and theformation of molecules with lower molecular weights, thus lightening the oilinvolved in the process. A typical cracking reaction is as follows:

Cn+mH2(n+m)+2 CnH2n+ CmH2m+2

2) Dehydrogenation: In dehydrogenation reactions, the number of carbon atomsremain unchanged; only C-H bonds are destroyed, and unsaturated hydrocarbons

are formed:

CnH2n+2 CnH2n+ H2

3) Condensation:Condensation between two hydrocarbons leads to the formation ofa molecule with a higher molecular weight. When the reactants are alkanes and

alkenes, condensation often leads to the formation of aromatic compounds.

There are certain factors and conditions which affect the pyrolysis reactions, they

are explained below:

3.1 I nf luence of TemperatureTemperature is a major factor which influences the type of reactions which take place

affects the amount of gas and solid in products. Reactions that take place at low

temperatures (


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1)Modification in rock composition: Mineral carbonates (such as dolomiteCaMg(CO3)2, Siderite FeCO3and Magnetite MgCO3) produce large amounts ofCO2 upon heating and the decomposition starts considerably sooner in the

presence of steam(13)

.

2) Effects of mineral matrix on cracking: Clay minerals have shown to have acatalytic effect on cracking reactions, especially on coke formation. In addition,

clays contribute greatly to the total available surface area. The presence of a

mineral promotes chemical reactions involving water and reduces the

difference in reactivity between crude oils(13)

.

3.4 I nf luence of Oil Compositi onThe amount of coke can be related to the oil's thermal reactivity, which is influenced

by the oil's geochemical composition. Conversely, the coke composition, determined

by elemental analysis and infrared spectroscopy, depends on the temperature reachedin the porous medium and not on the oil properties. The formation of coke follows aseries of reaction steps; they may be represented as follows:

Aromatics Resins Asphaltenes Coke

Therefore the more the coke produced the less the amount of the asphaltene and

plugging problems due to asphaltenes will reduce(13)

.

4. OIL RECOVERY MECHANISM IN FRACTURED RESERVOIRSIt is believed that naturally fractured reservoirs (NFR) contain up to 25-30% of the

world supply of oil. These reservoirs differ from non-fractured reservoirs in that the

fractures provide flow paths with permeabilities that can be orders of magnitude

higher than the remainder of the formation. Hence, the fractures can guide the fluid

flow within the reservoir without contributing to its storage capacity(13)

.

In order to recover oil from such reservoirs, a pressure gradient must be established

within a matrix block on pore level. This pressure gradient then displaces the oil from

one pore to the next and eventually, to the production well. It should be noted here,that this pressure gradient will not develop in all the cases i.e. with a high permeability

fracture network, the pressure gradient will not advance by simply injecting the fluid

in the well; as this would lead to poor sweep efficiency.

The recovery of oil from naturally fractured reservoirs can be modelled as a two step

process: oil is expelled from the matrix blocks through mechanisms that can impose a

pressure gradient within each matrix block and then is swept through the fracture

network to a production well by mechanisms that impose a pressure gradient within

the fracture network(13)

.


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5. STEAM FLOODING IN HEAVY AND LIGHT OIL RESERVOIRSTwo separate numerical models were prepared to investigate steam flooding

performance for the recovery of light and heavy oil. The heavy oil model is a

Cartesian hypothesis model with properties of Cold Lake heavy oil reservoir in

Canada and light oil model is a sector of an Iranian fractured light oil reservoir(8)

.

All possible recovery mechanisms (viscosity reduction, steam distillation, thermal oil

expansion and others) were simulated individually to measure the effectiveness ofeach recovery mechanism in total recovery of heavy and light oil during steam

flooding. Also, operational parameters such as steam quality, steam flow rate and well

perforation were optimized for both reservoirs.

5.1 Results and Discussions5.1.1Heavy Oil Reservoir Model(8)The Heavy oil model used in this study is basically a 3-dimensional hypothetical

Cartesian model which is based on the properties of Cold Lake heavy oil reservoir.

The properties of this reservoir are shown in Table 1. With the help of sensitivity

analysis, a 30x30x15 Cartesian model is used to represent a quarter of a typical 2.5-

acre 9-spot inverted steam flood pattern in this reservoir. The fluid model used in this

simulation study constitutes of water, dead oil and solution gas. Reservoir initial oil is

composed of 89% dead oil and 11% of solution gas. Also, the initial reservoir GOR is5.5 m3/m3. The relative permeability curves for this reservoir are added to the model.

The reservoir is water wet and the oil relative permeability curve is calculated from

Stones second model. There are four wells (three production and one injection well)

in this model. Figure 1 shows the schematic of the simulation model. For simulation

of steam flooding, the steam at the temperature of 300oC and quality of 0.95% is

injected to the reservoir. The minimum bottom-hole pressure for production wells is

3100 KPa and the maximum bottom hole pressure for injection well is 6000 KPa. Thesteam injection rate is adjusted to 100 m

3/d for 10 years. The cumulative oil

production and daily production rate for the period of simulation is shown in Figure

2. As shown in this figure, the rate of oil production and consequently the cumulativeoil production are very low at the beginning of steam injection process. This is true

because time is needed for the heat to reach all the reservoir parts and then the

reservoir became warm. The result of this simulation study shows that the total

cumulative oil production of this reservoir is 45415 barrels which is 65% of total

original oil in place.


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5.1.1.1 Ef fective MechanismsFor the recovery of heavy and light oil reservoirs in steam flooding process, various

recovery mechanisms have been investigated and implemented. All of the recovery

mechanisms are the same, but the efficiency and contribution of each mechanism intotal recovery of each reservoir oil type is different. The oil recovery mechanisms of

steam flooding are as follows(8) (11)

:

Viscosity Reduction Steam distillation Thermal oil expansion Gas expansion and drive Relative permeability and capillary pressure variation

But only the first three mechanisms mentioned above are the main mechanisms insteam flooding process, so they are presented in this paper. The effectiveness of each

recovery mechanism in total recovery of light and heavy oil is determined. In order to

attain this result, five separate scenarios are chosen as follows(8)

:

Run 1 when all possible recovery mechanisms contribute to total recovery.

Run 2 when only viscosity reduction contributes to total recovery.

Run 3 when only steam distillation contributes to total recovery.

Run 4 when only thermal oil expansion contributes to total recovery.

Run 5 when three main mechanisms dont contribute to total recovery.

The relative contribution of each of the three main recovery mechanisms from Runs 1

through Runs 4 can be calculated, and Run 5 can be used to determine the contribution

of other mechanisms. The result is shown in Table 2. As can be seen, the viscosityreduction mechanism is a main recovery mechanism and contributes to 80% of total

recovery and thermal oil expansion and steam distillation are the next important

mechanisms(8)

.

Figure 3shows the variation of contribution of each recovery mechanism with time.

The results in this figure indicate that the viscosity reduction and thermal oil

expansion are the main recovery mechanisms early in the injection process and afterthe 1800 day (when most of the recovery occurs) viscosity reduction dominates the

recovery process(8)

.

5.1.1.2 Optimization of operational parametersA detailed sensitivity analysis is performed to determine the effect of input and

modelling parameters before carrying out the simulation study. The important steam

flood operational parameters include the following concepts(8)

.


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Steam injection rate Steam quality Injection well perforation

Steam in jection rate

An increase in the steam injection rate results in a slight increase in the cumulative oil

production. There are several criteria for determination of the best injection rate,

including economical factors, steam production cost, steam generator capacity and

cost, as well as injectivity, wellbore facilities, surface facilities, oil price, among many

others(14)

.

In this study, the best steam injection rate is optimized according to the steam-oil ratio

and produced water. For this purpose, three injection rates have been investigated. The

cumulative oil production for different steam injection rates is shown in Table 3.

According to steam-oil ratio and produced water, an optimized value of 100 m3/day is

chosen for the steam injection rate.

Steam qual i ty

For determining the best steam quality, Steam quality of 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 0.95 were

investigated. The results are shown in Table 4. The incremental oil recovery foradditional steam quality is considerable. Therefore steam quality of 0.95 is chosen

(8).

I njection well per foration

Well completion strategy is a very vital operational parameter. The best injection well

perforation layers were determined for this reservoir using sensitivity analysis. Three

different scenarios were studied, as follows(8)

:

Case I: Production wells were perforated at top layers and injection well wasperforated at whole layers.

Case II: All wells were perforated at top layers.

Case III: Production wells were perforated at bottom layers and injection well was

perforated at top layers.

The results are presented in Table 5. It can be clearly seen that Case III is the better

perforation strategy than the others. This is mainly because the steam gravity is lower

than other fluids in the reservoir and when injected from top layers can push the oil

towards the production wells and prevents the gravity override(8)

.


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5.1.2 L ight Oi l Reservoir ModelThe light oil reservoir model used in this case is one of Iranian fractured oil-wet

carbonate reservoir. Some of the important properties of this reservoir are summarized

in Table 6. In order to simulate steam flooding, a sector of this reservoir is selected.

There are four wells in this sector which produce oil by natural depletion. Theminimum bottom-hole pressure for this reservoir is 1200 psi. In addition, two new

injection wells were drilled. Sensitivity runs were made for determination of their

appropriate locations. The results show that the injection wells with five spot patternshave the highest ultimate oil recovery. Figure 4 shows selected sector with location of

new injection wells(8)

. Comparisons were made between steam flooding (was injected

for ten years from year 2018) and water flooding at the same conditions, theeffectiveness and performance of both methods was recorded and analyzed. These

results are shown in Figure 5. As shown in this figure, steam injection compared to

water injection has higher cumulative oil production rate. Table 7 summarizes the

final results. It should be emphasized that incremental oil production and recovery

factor is counted with respect to 2010. These analysis show that naturally fractured

reservoirs are not a good candidate for conventional EOR process like water flooding.

The high fracture permeability prevents significant pressure differential across oil

bearing matrix blocks (8)

. In Middle East fractured carbonates, the matrix rock is

commonly oil-wet or mixed wet, so other methods are suggested instead of water

injection. Therefore, the best alternative process which would improve oil recovery is

steam injection process. One of the main reasons is that the heat from the injected

steam can penetrate through regions (such as low permeability regions) via conduction

where even fluids such as water are not able to do so.

5.1.2.1 Ef fective mechanismsTo find the effective mechanisms in recovery of light oil reservoir through steam

flooding, the same procedure was adopted as in the case of heavy oil reservoir. The

results are shown in Table 8and Figure 6 (8)

. It can be concluded from Table 8that

all three main mechanisms almost have the same contribution on recovery compared

to the heavy oil reservoir, and viscosity reduction does not have significant impact on

steam flooding. The variation of contribution of effective mechanisms with the time is

shown in Figure 6. It is evident from this figure, that early in the process; thermal oil

expansion is a dominant mechanism because thermal recovery due to heat conductionis achieved in the fractured reservoirs. After that, the two other mechanisms become

more important. Viscosity reduction has more effect when heat penetrates to unswept

area and steam distillation become more effective when the distillates bank reach the

production wells(8)

.

5.1.2.2 Optimization of operational parametersThe same operational parameters were investigated as in the previous case.


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Steam I njection Rate

The objective is to optimize the best steam injection rate according to steam oil ratio,

produced water and gas oil ratio. For this purpose four injection rate were

investigated. Just like the previous case, cumulative production was found to increase

with an increase of steam injection rate. From the results it can be concluded that

steam oil ratio of 1-1.7, GOR lower than 1000 SCF/STB and water cut lower than

50% gives exceptionable amount of oil, gas and water from the field(8)

. Therefore best

injection rate was selected based upon these criteria. According to Table 9, an

injection rate of 10000 bbl/day is the best injection rate for this reservoir.

Steam qual i ty

In this part of the study, different steam qualities are investigated to determine the best

specification. Steam quality of 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 0.95 were assessed. The results from

this study confirm that, unlike heavy oil reservoirs, steam quality has no significant

effect on oil production in this light oil reservoir(8)

. Therefore, for economic purposes,

the steam quality is adjusted to a value as low as possible. This is especially justifiedbecause light oil reservoirs have low initial viscosity, and consequently do not require

a large amount of latent heat in the application of the recovery method. The final

simulation data for different steam qualities is summarized in Table 10, and a final

selection of 0.8 ratio is made for this reservoir(8)

.

I njection well per foration

Three different scenarios were studied, as follows (8):

Case I: Four bottom layers of injection wells were perforated.

Case II: Four top layers of injection wells were perforated.

Case III: All layers of injection wells were perforated.

The results are given in Table 11, from which it can be deduced that Case II is the

best perforation strategy. This can be explained in terms of steam, water and oil

gravities. Out of these three components, steam has the lowest gravity; therefore it

goes to the upper layers and pushes the oil down to the bottom layers. In addition,early water breakthrough can be delayed in this case. It should be noted that, although

case III gave almost the same results, case II was chosen for this reservoir because oflower well completion costs

(8).


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6. IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM INJECTION PROCESSSteam is lighter and more mobile than oil. As a result, one of the major problems

facing steam injection is the poor sweep efficiency caused by gravity override and/or

channelling of the steam through the most permeable parts of the reservoir (13)

.

Therefore, it is clear that the economic success of steam injection process depends

largely on sweep efficiency. Some other problems in the reservoir such as poor

injectivity or bad interwell communication may also occur.

Improvements can be broadly divided in two categories(13)

:

a) Operational changes such as fracturing, use of horizontal wells, pressure cycling,

selective completions or injection in underlying aquifers.

b) Use of additives injected with the steam.

6.1 Improved OperationsDifferent methods for improved operations have been carried out at various locations

around the world to test the efficiency of total recovery of oil. For example, selective

completions have been tried in California and Venezuela. In this case, the main targetwas to be able to inject steam into the lower part of the interval of interest in order to

reduce gravity override.

Another method of injecting steam into underlying aquifers has been attempted in afew fields. This reduces the steam-oil ratios because of the heat lost in heating the

water in the aquifer.

Fracturing, either before steam injection or caused by the injection of high pressure

steam, has been shown to be effective in bitumen fields as well as in heavy oil

reservoirs. Horizontal wells have been used in several projects and seem to be a

promising technique for improving sweep efficiency in thermal recovery operations asshown by numerical simulations

(13).

6.2 Use of AdditivesThe use of additives is normally done along with steam i.e. Steam and additives areinjected together simultaneously. Various combinations of gases have been suggested

for use as an additive to steam. But not many fielded tests have shown promising

results of economic success. Some tests have shown to improve the steam-oil ratiowhen air is injected with steam, probably due to in-situ combustion or some kind of

exothermic oxidation reaction taking place. Theoretically, a combination of CO2and

steam could be beneficial to projects with highly viscous oils by reducing the oil

viscosity via CO2 dissolution (This process occurs naturally in carbonate reservoirs)

(13).


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Water-soluble additives such as surfactants have been widely used to enhance thesweep efficiency of steam injection operations or to try to modify the interfacial

properties of the oil/water system and reduce residual oil saturation.

6.3 Use of foamsIn addition to the fact that surfactants may improve near-wellbore oil flow by

modification of the oil/water relative permeability curves and/or possible removal of

solids, a reduction of steam mobility can be seen by the formation of foams(13)

. Foams

can be defined as dispersions of gas bubbles separated by liquid films. These films are

usually generated in porous media by snap-off mechanism, leaving behind and

division mechanisms.

The liquids films are normally unstable and will break quickly. As a result, surfactantsare added to the liquid, thus improving the stability. Results show that foams are

adequate in reducing gas mobility in a broad range of permeabilities but laboratory

and field observations seem to suggest a greater effect in permeability zones when the

porous medium tested is heterogeneous (example: naturally fractured reservoirs have a

wide range of heterogeneity).

7. CONCLUSIONNaturally fractured reservoirs hold over 20 billion barrels of heavy oil around theworld which necessitates the need for better understanding of current EOR processes

and future developments; and out of the available technologies, steam flooding has

proved to be an efficient enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process for both light andheavy oils. But this largely depends on certain parameters such as steam-oil ratio, gas-

oil ratio, water-cut and optimum steam quality, which must be adjusted accordingly so

as to optimize the steam-injection rate and get an economical and efficient recovery.The results show that increasing the steam-injection rate increases the cumulative oil

production rate.

Comparing the response of steam flooding to heavy and light oil reservoirs shows thatthe light oil reservoirs respond faster. Viscosity reduction is the main recovery

mechanism in recovery of heavy oil, contributing to 80% of total recovery, while all

three main recovery mechanisms have the same contribution to total recovery in the

case of light oil. Unlike heavy oil reservoirs, steam quality has no significant effect on

oil recovery for light oil reservoirs. Therefore, for economic reasons, steam quality

should be kept as low as possible(8)

.

The best injection well perforation strategy in both reservoirs was obtained with top

layers completed. The pyrolysis reactions are the most probable reactions occurring in

the reservoir during steam injection process and these are affected by the range of


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temperature, presence or absence of water phase, mineral matrix and oil composition

(13). The recovery of oil from naturally fractured reservoirs takes place in two steps;

first the required pressure gradient within matrix blocks to force oil into the fracture

network is established and then in the next step the pressure gradient drives the oil

from the fracture network to the production well.One of the major problems facing steam injection is the poor sweep efficiency caused

by gravity override and/or channelling of the steam through the most permeable parts

of the reservoir. Improvements can be broadly divided in two categories(13)

:

a) Operational changes such as fracturing, use of horizontal wells, pressure cycling,

selective completions or injection in underlying aquifers.

b) Use of additives injected with the steam.


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8. REFERENCES1. Study of Steam Injection in a Fractured Carbonate Heavy Oil Reservoir in Iran.

Sh.Mohammadi, M.R.Ehsani, M.Nikookar, L.Sahranavard, A. Soleimani Garakani.

Calgary : Society of Petroleum Engineers, 2012. SPE Heavy Oil Conference. pp. 1-11.

2. Production Technology Selection for Iranian Naturally Fractured Heavy Oil Reservoirs.

A. SHAFIEI, M.B. DUSSEAULT, H. MEMARIAN, B. SAMIMI SADEH.Calgary :

CANADIAN INSTITUTE OF MINING, METALLURGY & PETROLEUM, 2007.

Canadian International Petroleum Conference. pp. 1-16.

3. Experimental Investigation of Heavy Oil Recovery from Fractured Reservoirs by

Secondary SteamGas Assisted Gravity Drainage. A. Mohsenzadeha, M. Escrochia, M.V.

Afraza, Yahya Al-Wahaibi, Sh. Ayatollahia.Calgary : Society of Petroleum Engineers,

2012. SPE Heavy Oil Conference. pp. 1-18.

4. Experimental Investigation and Numerical Simulation of Steam Flooding in Heavy Oil

Fractured Reservoir. Yaser Souraki, Mohammad Ashrafi, Hassan Karimaie, and Ole

Torster.Anchorage : Society of Petroleum Engineers, 2011. SPE Western North American

Regional Meeting. pp. 1-11.

5. Steam Flooding of Naturally Fractured Reservoirs: Basic Concepts and Recovery

Mechanisms. Mollaei A., and Maini.1, 2010, Journal of Chemical and Petroleum

Technology, Vol. 49, pp. 65-70.

6. Investigation of Recovery Mechanism of Steam Injection in Heavy Oil CarbonateReservoir and Mineral Dissolution. Guo-Qing Tang, Art Inouye, Vincent Lee, Dustin

Lowry, and Wei Wei.Bakersfield, California : Society of Petroleum Engineers, 2012. SPE

Western Regional Meeting. pp. 1-15.

7. EOR Potential in the Middle East: Current and Future Trends. Saad M. Al-Mutairi,

Sunil L. Kokal.Vienna : Society of Petroleum Engineers, 2011. SPE EUROPEC/EAGE

Annual Conference. pp. 1-11.

8. Comparing the Performance and Recovery Mechanisms for Steam Flooding in Heavy and

Light Oil Reservoirs. Mehdi Bagheripour Haghighi, Shahab Ayatollahi.Calgary : Societyof Petroleum Engineers, 2012. SPE Heavy Oil Conference. pp. 1-9.

9. Experimental and Numerical Study of Steam Flooding in Fractured Porous Media.

Mohammad Ashrafi, Yaser Souraki, Hassan Karimaie, and Ole Torsaeter.Anchorage :

Society of Petroleum Engineers, 2011. SPE Western North American Regional Meeting. pp.

1-13.

10. Heavy-Oil Recovery Mechanisms During Steam Injection in Naturally Fractured

Reservoirs. Mateo Hernandez J.A., Trevisan, O.V.Buenos Aires : Society of Petroleum

Engineers, 2007. 2007 SPE Latin American and Caribbean. pp. 1-11.


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11. Experiments to Investigate Steam Injection in Light Oil Fractured. Marco Verlaan,

Paul Boerrigter, Sjaam Oedai, Johan van.Tulsa : Society of Petroleum Engineers, 2008.

2008 SPE/DOE Improved Oil Recovery Symposium. pp. 1-10.

12. An Overview of Heavy and Extra Heavy Oil Carbonate Reservoirs in the Middle East.

Buza, John W.Kuala Lumpur : s.n., 2008. International Petroleum Technology Conference.

pp. 1-8.

13. Investigation of Steam Flooding in Naturally Fractured Reservoirs. Alireza Mollaei,

Brij Maini and Madjid Jalilavi.Dubai : s.n., 2007. International Petroleum Technology

Conference. pp. 1-13.

14. Evaluation of Steam Injection in a Fractured Heavy-Oil Carbonate Reservoir in Iran.

Bahonar M, Ataei A, Masoudi R, and Mousavi Mirkalaei S.M.Kingdom of Bahrain :

Society of Petroleum Engineers, 2007. SPE Middle East Oil and Gas Show and Conference.

105299-MS.


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List of Figures and Tables(8)

Table 1: Properties of Cold Lake Reservoir

Table 2: The Contribution of effective mechanisms in recovery of heavy oil

Table 3: Final Simulation data for different steam injection rate for recovery of heavy

oil

Table 4: Final simulation data for different steam quality for recovery of heavy oil

Table 5: Final simulation data for different well completion for recovery of heavy oil


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Table 6: Properties of light oil reservoir

Table 7: Steam flooding performance for light oil reservoir

Table 8: The contribution of effective mechanisms in recovery of light oil

Table 9: Final simulation data for different steam injection rate for recovery of light oil

Table 10: Final simulation data for different steam quality for recovery of light oil


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Table 11: Final simulation data for different well completion for recovery of light oil

Figure 1: The heavy oil simulation model

Figure 2: The cumulative and daily heavy oil production through steam flooding


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Figure 3: Recovery contributions of effective mechanisms of heavy oil through steam

flooding

Figure 4: The light oil simulation model


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Figure 5: Steam flooding performance in comparison to water flooding and natural

depletion

Figure 6: Recovery contributions of effective mechanisms of light oil through steam

flooding

Steam Flooding in Fractured Media

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