Generating enough heat to convert water into steam is a major expense for projects that inject steam into reservoirs to enhance hydrocarbon recovery. If the temperature of the injected fluid is lowered this expense would be reduced. In the past, attempts have been made to inject hot water instead of steam. The results have all been rather poor, the major problem being low sweep efficiency. The hot water just doesn’t enhance oil recovery enough. Adding propane to the steam injected in the reservoir lowers the boiling point of the light to intermediate hydrocarbon fractions, upgrading the oil and reducing viscosity. The goal of this investigation is to see if the same effects could be achieved when adding propane to hot water – making it a lower cost option for an injection operation. Results conclude that you need steam to achieve satisfactory recovery. These results reflect differences in heat injected by steam compared to that of hot water. Steam has a more penetrating effect, shooting into the reservoir where the hot water moves more slowly forward. The propane just doesn’t seem to have the same accelerating effect when used with water as it does when used with steam.

A 3D 8-component thermal compositional simulation study has been performed to evaluate the merits of steam-propane injection and a novel vertical-smart horizontal well system for the Lombardi reservoir in the San Ardo field, California. The novel well system consists of a vertical steam injector and a horizontal producer, whose horizontal section is fully open initially, and after steam breakthrough, only one-third (heel-end) is kept open. A 16x16x20 Cartesian model was used that represented a quarter of a typical 10acre 9-spot inverted steamflood pattern in the field. The prediction cases studied assume prior natural depletion to reservoir pressure of about 415 psia. Main results of the simulation study may be summarized as follows. First, under steam injection, oil recovery is significantly higher with the novel vertical-smart horizontal well system (45.5-58.7% OOIP at 150-300 BPDCWE) compared to the vertical well system (33.6-32.2% OOIP at 150-300 BPDCWE). Second, oil recovery increases with steam injection rate in the vertical-smart horizontal well system but appears to reach a maximum at about 150 BPDCWE in the vertical well system (due to severe bypassing of oil). Third, under steam-propane injection, oil recovery for the vertical-smart horizontal well system increases to 46.1% OOIP at 150 BPDCWE but decreases to 51.6% OOIP at 300 PDCWE due to earlier steam breakthrough that resulted in reduced sweep efficiency. Fourth, for the vertical well system, steam-propane injection results in an increase of oil recovery to 35.4-32.6% OOIP at 150-300 BPDCWE. Fifth, with steam-propane injection, for both well systems, oil production acceleration increases with lower injection rates. Sixth, the second oil production peak in the vertical-smart horizontal well system is accelerated by 24-50% in time for 150-300 BPDCWE compared to that with pure steam injection.

Generating enough heat to convert water into steam is a major expense for projects that inject steam into reservoirs to enhance hydrocarbon recovery. If the temperature of the injected fluid is lowered this expense would be reduced. In the past, attempts have been made to inject hot water instead of steam. The results have all been rather poor, the major problem being low sweep efficiency. The hot water just doesn’t enhance oil recovery enough. Adding propane to the steam injected in the reservoir lowers the boiling point of the light to intermediate hydrocarbon fractions, upgrading the oil and reducing viscosity. The goal of this investigation is to see if the same effects could be achieved when adding propane to hot water – making it a lower cost option for an injection operation. Results conclude that you need steam to achieve satisfactory recovery. These results reflect differences in heat injected by steam compared to that of hot water. Steam has a more penetrating effect, shooting into the reservoir where the hot water moves more slowly forward. The propane just doesn’t seem to have the same accelerating effect when used with water as it does when used with steam.

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Thesis (B.S.)--University of Missouri, School of Mines and Metallurgy, 1913. / The entire thesis text is included in file. Typescript. Illustrated by authors. Harold P. Ford determined to be Harold Percy Ford and S. E. Hollister determined to be Scovill Edward Hollister from "Forty-Third Annual Catalogue. School of Mines and Metallurgy, University of Missouri". Harold P. Ford earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mining Engineering in 1912. S. E. Hollister earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mining Engineering in 1913. Both determined from "Forty-Third Annual Catalogue. School of Mines and Metallurgy, University of Missouri". Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed March 26, 2009)

Thesis (M.S.)--Auburn University, 2008. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (108-135).

LD2668 .T4 1941 P51 / Master of Science

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