Abstract

Steamflood technology has made significant advances since its first known field application in the late 50's. This paper reviews some of the more important advances made during the past decade covering the five major technological areas: (1) steam generation and distribution, (2) sub-surface equipment and methods, (3) process improvements, (4) reservoir description, and (5) performance prediction.

Notable advances in steam generation and distribution include cogeneration of steam and power, splitting of steam at tee junctions, and steam flow measurement and control. In the well work area, the technology has benefited greatly from new methods for dividing steam into multisand reservoirs, advances in insulation technology, horizontal well methods, and two-phase fluid injection profiling. Significant process improvements include water-alternating-steam, injection, steam-foam for profile control, use of gas additives in steam, infill drilling, and new steamflood strategies for steeply dipping reservoirs.

More accurate reservoir description is now achieved in a multidisciplinary environment involving geologists, geophysicists, and reservoir engineers, and has been the key to many successful steamflood projects. Steamflood prediction capability has advanced from analytical methods of the late 50's and early 60's to the current numerical methods that allow fieldwide simulation of steamflood projects. Both hardware and software developments of recent years enable very difficult thermal simulation problems to be solved on personal or microcomputers. Simulation has become an essential tool for steamflood reservoir management.

These advances contributed heavily to increasing worldwide oil production and recoverable reserves that are attributable to steam EOR.