A comparative laboratory analysis of dry forward combustion has beenaccomplished with the application of different well configurations in a 3-Dsemi scaled model using medium and low gravity crudes. The model representsone-fourth of a five spot pattern in Raman and B.Kozluca fields, both of whichare located in Turkey. The model has been scaled almost fully commensurate with Raman field whilst, it merely corresponds to a geometrically similar prototypein B Kozluca field.
Seven experiments using Raman crude (18.3 °API) and four experiments using B.Kozluca (12.4 °API), have been carried out in the laboratory with a 40 cmsquare 3-D model having a thickness of 15 cm. Five different wellconfigurations have been applied to recover Raman crude while four differentwell configurations are studied with B.Kozluca crude. The model is packed bytamping a sand mixture of crushed limestone, water and crude oil. A total of 36thermocouples have been aligned at the top, centre and bottom planes toconceive 3-D temperature distribution and to track down the trailing frontduring the experiments. An ignitor is placed near the vertical injector. Air isinjected through this vertical injector in each experiment ensuing a period ofpre-heating and ignition to sustain combustion. To perceive their effects onoil recovery and process variables, all of the well configurations have beenstudied using both crudes except dual horizontal producers; which have onlybeen experimented with Raman crude.
Apart from the dual horizontal producers; horizontal producers positioned atthe boundary of the model alone as a single producer, a mass highest amount ofoil regardless of its API gravity. With a same burned volume more oil isrecovered by horizontal producers than by vertical producers. Nevertheless, inall the cases recovery decreases with a decrease in API gravity. Airrequirement and fuel consumption have been reduced greatly by applyinghorizontal producer. But for a certain well configuration air requirement andfuel consumption have been higher with lower gravity (12.4 °API) crude. Theprocess variables such as front velocity, fuel consumption rate, injection andproduction pressures and sweep efficiencies have been investigated for both thecrudes to assay process performance.
