Thermal Recovery Methods

Thermal recovery methods, are used to heat the

crude oil in the formation to reduce its viscosity
and/or vaporize part of the oil.

Thermal Recovery Methods

Methods include cyclic steam injection, steam drive and
in situ combustion.

These methods improve the sweep efficiency and the

displacement efficiency of heavy crude.

Steam Injection
Steam injection is an increasingly common method of
extracting heavy oil.

It is the main type of thermal stimulation of oil

reservoirs, with the two main ones being Cyclic Steam
Stimulation and Steam Flooding.

Cyclic Steam Stimulation

This method, also known as the Huff and Puff method,
consists of 3 stages:

injection
soaking
production

Injection

Steam is first injected into a well for a certain amount of

time to heat the oil in the surrounding reservoir to a
temperature at which it flows.

Soaking

After it is decided enough steam has been injected, the

steam is usually left to "soak" for some time after
(typically not more than a few days).

Production
Then oil is produced out of the same well, at first by
natural flow (since the steam injection will have
increased the reservoir pressure) and then by artificial
lift.
Production will decrease as the oil cools down, and once
production reaches an economically determined level the
steps are repeated again.

Production

The process can be quite effective, especially in the first

few cycles. However, it is typically only able to recover
approximately 20% of the Original Oil in Place (OOIP).

Steam Flooding

In a steam flood, sometimes known as a steam drive,

some wells are used as steam injection wells and other
wells are used for oil production.

Steam Flooding
Two mechanisms are at work to improve the amount of
oil recovered:
Reduction of viscosity
Physical Displacement

Viscosity Reduction

The first is to heat the oil to higher temperatures and to

thereby decrease its viscosity so that it more easily flows
through the formation toward the producing wells.

Physical Displacement
A second mechanism is the physical displacement
employing in a manner similar to water flood , in which
oil is meant to be pushed to the production wells.
More steam is needed for this method than for the cyclic
method, it is typically more effective at recovering a
larger portion of the oil.
steam flooding which has been reported to recover over
50% of OOIP.