SIMULTANEOUS HEAT AND FLUID FLOW IN POROUS MEDIA: CASE STUDY: STEAM INJECTION FOR TERTIARY OIL RECOVERY

Heat transfer and fluid flow in porous media occur simultaneously in thermal enhanced oil recovery and significantly increase the rate of energy transfer. The purpose of this investigation was to take advantage of such contemporary transfers and to study heavy oil recovery efficiency using hot-water flooding, cold-water flooding, and steam injection into porous media. A set of multistage laboratory tests was performed to find the temperature profile during steam injection as a means of tertiary oil recovery. Sand-packed models were utilized to investigate the oil recovery efficiency during cold and hot water injection as well as steam flooding for both secondary and tertiary oil production stages. An oil bank was formed in steam injection during the tertiary oil recovery from a vertical standing sand-packed model, resulting in very high oil recovery efficiency. Steam injection was found to be very effective, compared to cold- and hot-water flooding, for the recovery of heavy oil. Based on the principles of transport phenomena in porous media, 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.