Abstract
Steam injection is one of most successful techniques for improving oil recovery in heavy oil fields. However some reservoirs have characteristics that are not adequate for the implementation of this technique due to reservoir heterogeneity, where steam driving is present in most favorable areas as a result giving a channeling which does not allow the existence of a uniform vertical steam distribution, leaving unheated areas, decreasing the process efficiency and obtaining unexpected oil recovery factors.
Therefore in this paper different strategies were evaluated using a numerical reservoir simulator to determine most suitable option with the greatest chance of technical success for the implementation of selective steam injection. For the development of this research initially a study of selective steam injection process was performed in stratified reservoirs, once it was made this, the strategies for selective injection were raised: Steam injection at maximum and minimum rates for different layers, the product of each layer permeability by thickness and reservoir stimulation preceded by selective injection. Finally, the strategies selected were implemented in conceptual simulation models built in this case for a stratified homogeneous and heterogeneous reservoir developed with the properties of a Colombian heavy oil field using a comercial software.
The final results were analyzed based on the behavior of the oil recovery factor and the injection profile, these confirmed the efficiency of the technique, allowing to heat the formations by appropriate injection rate and for this reason an increase in the amount of recovered oil.
After obtaining the simulation results is set the better or best possibilities for implementing selective injection, it determines the range of application where selective steam injection could be run efficiently obtained from the ratio of the product of the permeability by the thickness and it is determined that treatment is best for the reservoir with cyclic steam simulation before selective steam injection.
