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Thermal recovery is the principal enhanced-oil-recovery (EOR) technique currently in use to recover extra heavy, heavy, and viscous crude oil (Prats 1982; Butler 1991). As crude-oil temperature increases, crude-oil viscosity decreases dramatically, thereby thinning heavy crude oil and improving its fluidity and mobility within the reservoir. In addition, thermal recovery is emerging as a technique to release oil held in the matrix of fractured and/or dual-porosity media such as diatomite (Kumar and Beatty 1995; Kovscek et al. 1997; Murer et al. 2000) and carbonate (van Wunnik and Wit 1992; Boukadi et al. 2007; Novak et al. 2007; Brown et al. 2011; Gross et al. 2011). In fractured settings, heat penetrates the matrix by conduction even if steam cannot enter because of capillarity. Accordingly, oil recovery is enhanced because heat sweeps the portions of the reservoir never contacted by injectant. In this sense, thermal recovery is unique in that oil recovery is enhanced even if not contacted directly by the injected fluid.

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