Air Injection: Timely and Widely Applicable!
Air injection for improved oil recovery has successfully been applied in essentially every reservoir/geological setting. From light oil to bitumen, in carbonate and sandstone reservoirs, using pattern flood and line drive, horizontal and vertical wells, and as secondary and tertiary recovery processes. New applications are currently being developed and tested. However, irrelevant reservoir screening criteria for air injection still persist, and to date there has been no comprehensive review in the technical literature that reflects this demonstrated broad range of air injection applicability. Fundamentally, air injection has relatively low operating costs and has high injectivity, as well as high displacement and thermal efficiencies. Therefore it is timely to revisit and rationalize air injection successes as the financial and environmental costs associated with steam injection continue to rapidly increase. This paper presents and discusses commercially (or technically) successful air injection projects that encompass the diverse range of conditions mentioned above. The key design factors contributing to project success and lessons learned are emphasized The combustion, displacement and operating principles that differentiate light and heavy oil applications are also systematically incorporated
JOHN D. M. BELGRAVE HARBIR S. CHHINA
EnCana Corporation
国际会议
首届世界重油大会(The Technical Sessions of the First World Heavy Oil Conference)
北京
英文
776-782
2006-11-12（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）