Enhanced recovery

Horizontal Steam Injectors in the Kern River Field

A horizontal-steam-injection pilot project has been under way for the last 4 years in the Kern River heavy-oil field in the southern San Joaquin Valley of California.

jpt-2018-06-187258hero.jpg
Fig. 1—Scale deposition on the low side of the 3½-in. tubing in the heel region of Injector A.

A horizontal-steam-injection pilot project has been under way for the last 4 years in the Kern River heavy-oil field in the southern San Joaquin Valley of California. This project was designed to address a series of learning objectives for horizontal steam injection in a mobile heavy-oil reservoir. These objectives included mechanical integrity and operability, steam conformance control, steam-flow profiling, and reservoir response and long-term operability.

Introduction

While documented cases of continuous and cyclic horizontal steam injection in mobile heavy oil exist, these have not led to large-scale economic development of thermal heavy oil. Most thermal, mobile, heavy oil is currently produced with vertical steam injectors.

×
SPE_logo_CMYK_trans_sm.png
Continue Reading with SPE Membership
SPE Members: Please sign in at the top of the page for access to this member-exclusive content. If you are not a member and you find JPT content valuable, we encourage you to become a part of the SPE member community to gain full access.