American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, Inc.
This paper was prepared for the Improved Oil Recovery Symposium of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME, to be held in Tulsa, Okla., March 22–24, 1976. Permission to copy is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words. Illustrations may not be copied. The abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is usually granted upon request to the Editor of the appropriate journal provided agreement to give proper credit is made. provided agreement to give proper credit is made. Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Society of Petroleum Engineers office. Such discussion may be presented at the above meeting and with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines.
The Metson Pool of the Midway-Sunset Field in California is a steeply dipping viscous oil reservoir. Steam type thermal recovery operations have been in progress in the pool for ten years. pool for ten years. Cyclic steam stimulation techniques have been utilized to take advantage of both natural and induced productive mechanisms. These cyclic operations have proven effective in all but the updip sections of the formation.
An attic steam injection program was initiated as a pilot project in October, 1970 and has since been expanded to include 18 steam injection patterns across the updip edge of the formation. The short term objective of this program is to economically displace and recover oil at the top of the structure by conventional steam flood mechanisms. The long term objective is to accelerate recoveries from downdip cyclic operations.
The excellent results of this project indicate that the attic steam drive process should be applicable to any massive, steeply-dipping, heavy oil reservoir. The process will be of particular value along updip reservoir edges where cyclic steam injection has become uneconomic.
The Metson Lease is located approximately 27 miles southwest of Bakersfield, California at the southernmost tip of the Mid-way-Sunset Field in Section 24, T11N/R23W, SBB and M, Kern County, California (see Figure 1). The discovery well was completed in 1953 and was followed by the drilling of 31 additional wells through 1968. Extensive drilling was not continued at this time in the life of the lease due to relatively poor economics and low production rates prior to the evolution of thermal stimulation.
The advent of cyclic steam stimulation in 1965 was a boon to production from this property as wells that normally would only property as wells that normally would only produce 10–20 BOPD without steam, would produce 10–20 BOPD without steam, would now produce in the 100 + BOPD range.
