Abstract
The use of horizontal wells in oil industry has increased rapidly during the last decade. The main reason for this upsurge is that wells provide large contact area with the reservoir and therefore enhance the well productivity or injectivity better than conventional vertical wells. The high productivity coupled with the recent advances in drilling technology for horizontal wells has made their application to be an economically viable option.
The study will investigate by numerical simulation technique the performance of horizontal injection wells with production vertical wells in thermal recovery processes. A high resolution numerical simulator (ECLIPSE) will be used during the course of this research. Extensive three-dimensional, fine-mesh simulation runs will be performed to determine the oil recovery under different operating/reservoir conditions. The purpose will be to study the functional relationship between several design parameters and the oil recovery from horizontal/vertical wells configurations during thermal flooding. These parameters will include: (1) configurations of horizontal and vertical wells, (2) flood patterns, (3) Horizontal well length, (4) Mobility ratio.
