Thermal Eor

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A Comprehensive Review of Thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery: Techniques

Evaluation
Article in Journal of Energy Resources Technology, Transactions of the ASME · March 2019
DOI: 10.1115/1.4041096
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Esmail M. A. Mokheimer1
Mem. ASME
Mechanical Engineering Department,
College of Engineering,
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM),
P. O. Box: 279,
Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia;
Center of Research Excellence
in Energy Efficiency (CEEE),
P. O. Box: 279,
Center of Research Excellence in
Renewable Energy (CoRe-RE),
P. O. Box: 279,
Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
e-mail: esmailm@kfupm.edu.sa
M. Hamdy
Mechanical Engineering Department,
A Comprehensive Review of
P. O. Box: 279,
Thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery:
e-mail: mhamdy@kfupm.edu.sa Techniques Evaluation
Zubairu Abubakar The oil production from any well passes through three stages. The first stage is the natu-
Mechanical Engineering Department, ral extraction of oil under the well pressure, the second stage starts when the well pres-
sure decreases. This second stage includes flooding the well with water via pumping sea
P. O. Box: 677,
or brackish water to increase the well pressure and push the oil up enhancing the oil
Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia recovery. After the first and secondary stages of oil production from the well, 20–30% of
e-mail: Zubairu@kfupm.edu.sa the well reserve is extracted. The well is said to be depleted while more than 70% of the
oil are left over. At this stage, the third stage starts and it is called the enhanced oil
Mohammad Raghib Shakeel recovery (EOR) or tertiary recovery. Enhanced oil recovery is a technology deployed to
Mechanical Engineering Department, recover most of our finite crude oil deposit. With constant increase in energy demands,
College of Engineering, EOR will go a long way in extracting crude oil reserve while achieving huge economic
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), benefits. EOR involves thermal and/or nonthermal means of changing the properties of
P. O. Box: 567, crude oil in reservoirs, such as density and viscosity that ensures improved oil displace-
Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia ment in the reservoir and consequently better recovery. Thermal EOR, which is the focus
e-mail: raghib@kfupm.edu.sa of this paper, is considered the dominant technique among all different methods of EOR.
In this paper, we present a brief overview of EOR classification in terms of thermal and
Mohamed A. Habib nonthermal methods. Furthermore, a comprehensive review of different thermal EOR
Mechanical Engineering Department, methods is presented and discussed. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4041096]
P. O. Box: 1866,
e-mail: mahabib@kfupm.edu.sa
Mohamed Mahmoud
Petroleum Engineering Department,
College of Petroleum
Engineering & Geosciences,
King Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM),
P. O. Box: 5049,
Center for Integrative Petroleum Research,
College of Petroleum
Engineering & Geosciences,
King Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM),
P. O. Box: 5049,
e-mail: mamahmoud@kfupm.edu.sa
1
Corresponding author.
Contributed by the Petroleum Division of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL
OF ENERGY RESOURCES TECHNOLOGY. Manuscript received July 12, 2018; final
manuscript received July 21, 2018; published online September 14, 2018. Assoc.
Editor: Reza Sheikhi.
Journal of Energy Resources Technology Copyright V

C 2019 by ASME MARCH 2019, Vol. 141 / 030801-1
Downloaded From: https://energyresources.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org on 06/10/2019 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use

Fig. 1 (a) Worldwide EOR market contribution through 7 years (adapted from [5]) and (b) EOR forecast in the Middle East up
to 2050 (adapted from [6])
1 Introduction which gives an indication to the importance of this process in the

Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is a widely accepted oil produc- future [5]. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
tion technique that helps in minimizing shortages of crude oil (OPEC) estimated the role of EOR in increased oil production in
recourses and its high prices. It is a technique by which huge the Middle East up to 2050 as shown in Fig. 1(b) [6].
amount of crude remaining in wells after natural extraction pro- Enhanced oil recovery process can be classified as thermal and
cess is recovered. The natural extraction process (primary recov- nonthermal techniques. As the name implies, thermal EOR uses
ery), which employs the reservoir natural pressure for crude oil thermal energy to raise the reservoir temperature, and as a result,
extraction, leaves huge amount (more than 70% in some cases) of decreases the oil viscosity [7,8]. Thermal EOR is considered one of
original oil in place (OOIP) unextracted, due to decrease in reser- the most advanced EOR processes and it currently provides a sig-
voir pressure. Consequently, the use of secondary oil recovery nificant amount of oil in overall global oil outlook. There are differ-
that involves fluid (mainly water and gas) injection to augment ent thermal EOR methods, but we focused in this review on the
the reservoir pressure, as well as EOR, also known as tertiary established methods, which are in use for the past 30–40 years in
recovery, becomes imperative to improve oil recovery. While sec- the field. These include hot fluid injection such as hot water flood-
ondary recovery involves injecting water or gas to help sweep the ing and steam injection, and in situ combustion (ISC) also called
oil through the wells without changing the actual properties of the fire flooding. High porosity sand/sandstone formation in reservoirs
hydrocarbon, EOR techniques involves changing the reservoir is the most suitable for thermal recovery processes [9]. Thermal
make-up. In essence, important properties like density and viscos- recovery processes are commonly used for thick, high density, vis-
ity of the crude oil changes, making oil displacement easier in the cous oils having American Petroleum Institute (API) gravities of
reservoir [1–4]. Oil recovery can reach as high as 75% of the less than 20. By characterization, oils with API less than 22 are
OOIP, depending on the employed EOR technique. EOR is pro- heavy oils, while oils having less than 10 API deg are categorized
jected to change the oil production forecast in the Middle East and as extra-heavy and Bitumen that are denser than water [10].
the entire world as shown in Fig. 1. Figure 1(a) shows that the The thermal energy used during thermal recovery lowers the oil
EOR market in the world is expected to increase dramatically, viscosity, specific gravity, and interfacial tension, thereby
Fig. 2 Kinematic viscosity of gas-free oils as a function of temperature (adapted from [11])
030801-2 / Vol. 141, MARCH 2019 Transactions of the ASME

3 Thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery Classifications
As reported in the literature, thermal EOR methods are very
important and are widely applicable worldwide [8]. Different
types of aqueous methods, which are related to water and its
derivatives, are widely used over the last few decades. Processes
such as cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) and hot water injection,
ISC, hot water, and steam flooding and steam-assisted gravity
drainage (SAGD) are the most prominent thermal EOR techni-
ques. The other thermal EOR techniques are the use of nonaqu-
eous methods, which supply the thermal energy to the reservoir
without injecting water or its derivatives. Such methods include
electric heating and electromagnetic heating. The nonaqueous
methods are rarely applicable due to technical constrains and
environmental issues, subsequently, future work is required in
order to make the nonaqueous methods more competitive. A
recent development toward that involves the combination of the
nonaqueous methods with water or solvent injection. Details
about thermal EOR methods will be presented in this paper later.
Figure 5 depicts various thermal EOR methods.
Fig. 3 Nonthermal-enhanced oil recovery technologies [7]
4 Electrical and Electromagnetic Heating

This is an EOR technique that uses electrical current to heat the
heavy oil in its reservoir. Due to the oil heating process, there will
be a formation of vapor chamber in the reservoir, and subsequent
easy mobility of oil. Electrical EOR method can be divided into
three main types: the low-frequency Ohmic heating also called
resistive heating, high frequency or radiofrequency/microwave
heating, and medium frequency or inductive heating. In the
Ohmic heating, a potential difference is applied between two elec-
trodes where one acts as anode and the other acts as cathode. In
the field, this can be applied by using two oil wells utilizing one
as cathode and the other as anode [13]. This technique is shown to
have advantages and improves oil recovery, but it has some disad-
vantages such as generating steam during heating, which
decreases the amount of water and, as a result, decreases the ther-
mal energy transferred by water. Using water injection along with
this method had been suggested [14]. It is expected that this will
enhance the heating process especially in low-permeability zones.
Numerical simulation using CMG-STARS thermal reservoir sim-
ulator [15] had been reported [16], where down hole electric heat-
ing method was used together with injection of a working fluid for
Fig. 4 Ratio of different EOR methods used in projects around enhancing the heat transfer. The working fluids such as water,
the world [12] pure solvents (butane, hexane, and natural gas condensate), or
combined water and solvents were used in the study. The study
shows that the use of the combined water solvent as the working
fluid is more effective than using the solvent only, due to the dilu-
facilitating oil flow in the production well. Figure 2 depicts the tion effect of the solvent that improves heat transfer characteris-
effect of temperature on the kinematic viscosity of gas-free oil, tics of the solvent and water, thereby accelerating the process.
which generally decreases with the increase in temperature [11]. Consequently, economic improvements were reported through the
Apart from changes in physical properties of the oil, its chemical reduction of the amount of surface water–oil ratio to be 3–10
properties also change through cracking and dehydrogenation times smaller than those of SAGD, and also by the decreased
among other chemical reactions. As mentioned before, thermal amount of needed steam.
processes commonly include hot fluid injection, in situ combus- Electromagnetic heating (EM) is a relatively new technique for
tion, and electrical heating and a less conventional electromag- EOR that is gaining huge attention recently. In this method, elec-
netic heating. tromagnetic waves are used to produce electrical energy, which is
transferred to the dielectric and resistive materials in the form of
thermal energy, which is used in EOR. Therefore, EM technique
2 Nonthermal Enhanced Oil Recovery Classification converts EM energy to thermal energy for use in EOR [17–24]. In
The nonthermal methods are classified into three recovery the reservoir, the electromagnetic heating can be produced by two
methods according to Naqvi [7]. These methods are summarized ways: high frequency (radio and microwave) and low frequency
as shown in Fig. 3. Reports revealed that nonthermal methods are waves. The EM method for EOR has a lot of advantages including
not widely in use compared with thermal EOR as shown in Fig. 4 reduction of carbon emission, minimization of excessive water
[12]. The figure depicts a summary of the EOR production rates usage, and relatively higher performance when used together with
using different methods around the world. solvent injection.
It is clear from Fig. 4 that at 67% global usage, thermal EOR is As an improvement to EM heating, adding solvent during the
the dominant method employed for EOR globally. This is partly process was suggested [22,25,26]. A study to test the performance
due to its high performance and other benefits, which we will be of EM heating and solvent-assisted gravity drainage for EOR was
discussing in detail in the remaining parts of this paper. conducted experimentally [27]. Solvent was injected while the
Journal of Energy Resources Technology MARCH 2019, Vol. 141 / 030801-3

Fig. 5 Thermal EOR processes
reservoir undergoes EM heating. The effects of EM heating electrical heater in the producer EMH-EH was proposed by Sade-
power, initial water saturation, solvent types, and combination ghi et al. [33]. The three methods were compared according to
strategies of EM heating and solvent injection (simultaneous or energy saving and the time required for mobilization. In the end,
alternate means) were recorded. Results illustrated that the combi- it was concluded that the electromagnetic heating (EMH) clearly
nation of EM heating and solvent-assisted gravity drainage could increases the energy saving. Investigations carried out to explore
enhance oil recovery beyond the use of EM heating only. Also, this EOR technique revealed important conclusions about its
the type of solvent employed affects the performance of the potentials in oil recovery; the literature, however, is still evolving
system. EM heating followed by n-octane injection gives higher in that regard. These include a summarized survey for experimen-
performance compared with the simultaneous EM heating and sol- tal, numerical, and field application of EM heating for heavy oil
vent injection. Furthermore, it is reported that moderate initial recovery [8]. Using microwaves for thermal energy generation is
water saturation enhances the heating speed, and as a result, another technique that has huge potential. The energy transforma-
increases oil recovery. EM induction heating with a variable mag- tion from microwave to thermal energy in the presence of micro-
netic field generated by an inductor was conducted using electri- waves absorbers can be exploited in reservoir heating for EOR.
cally conductive materials placed in a field [8]. An electromotive The fact that crude oil in itself is not a good microwave absorber
force had been generated to set up the flux in an electric machine, entails the use of other materials having high microwave absorp-
and an apparatus was employed to generate eddy current. This tivity such as activated carbon, Nanometal-oxides, and polar sol-
current generates the required thermal energy, which is a function vents, which make the heating process faster. The use of enhanced
of the material’s heat capacity, the frequency of induced current, metal-nanoparticles incorporating electromagnetic heating for
the permeability of the material, and the resistance of the material field-scale EOR application was proposed as a future work by
to the flow of current through it. EM induction heating, being Greff et al. [24]. The challenge is optimizing a way of injecting
quite recent, has just begun to be deployed in fields. Having
inductors situated at the bottom of the well, Siemens AG deployed
the EM technique for heavy oil recovery from oil sands [8]. They
designed an inductive coil with medium frequency electric field
depending on the reservoir condition to produce thermal energy.
Many research papers covering different aspects of EM heating
for EOR are available in the literature [28–32].
Preheating is very important in EOR for energy saving and for
accelerating the process. Down hole electrical heaters (EH) and
electromagnetic heating (EMH) have been suggested for this pur-
pose to reduce the preheating time with energy savings [33].
Some EOR processes such as SAGD requires time period of 3–6
months to complete the heating process. But, with high frequency
electromagnetic waves, this period could be reduced by polariza-
tion of electrically conductive molecules inside the oil sands. A
model with new analytical solution, having three different pre-
heating processes, steam circulation, electrical heaters in both hor-
izontal wells EH, electromagnetic antenna in the injector, and Fig. 6 Schematic illustration of CSS

the nanoparticles into reservoirs during the EM heating process. operational considerations while the oil production rate limits the
One suggestion is the injection of Nano-fluid at different stages of production time. From the production viewpoint, it is vital to
EM heating after viscosity reduction. determine the number of cycles that will achieve maximum oil
recovery by the process, as it generally becomes less efficient
5 Hot Fluid Injection Processes with increasing number of cycles.
Cyclic steam stimulation process has been widely employed for
As its name implies, hot fluid injection as an EOR process EOR since its accidental discovery in 1959 in Eastern Venezuela
involves the use of hot fluid in an oil reservoir to ease the flow of by Shell Oil Company of Venezuela when testing a steam drive
oil for production. Thermal energy is transferred (in form of heat) [41]. It has been successfully used in various heavy oil fields in
to the reservoir by the combined effect of convection and conduc- Canada, Venezuela, Brazil, and in California, USA, where it is
tion mechanisms [8].This thermal energy leads to high viscosity used as a first stage before continuous steam injection [44]. The
reduction and thermal expansion of oil in the reservoir. Injecting main advantage of cyclic steam stimulation is a rapid pay-out dur-
steam is the most common technique in this technology of thermal ing early production. Its percentage of oil recovery vis-a-vis
EOR and it is the most commercially successful [34–38]. Steam OOIP, is, however, comparatively low ranging from 10 to 20%
injection processes involve three methods, which are CSS (also [45]. To improve this low oil recovery in CSS, enhancements
called huff-and-puff method), steam flooding (steam drive), and such as the use of horizontal rather than vertical well, the use of
SAGD [8]. In steam flooding, steam is injected through injection chemical additives in the steam, and hydraulic fracturing are intro-
wells reducing the oil viscosity in addition to the sweeping effect duced with the process. Consequently, studies focusing on the
generated by flooding of steam. However, this method requires optimization of chemical additives in the steam and fracture
more steam than the CSS despite being more effective. design are common in recent literatures [46,47]. Such enhance-
ments were reported to achieve improvements of up to 40% of
5.1 Cyclic Steam Stimulation. Cyclic steam stimulation OOIP, a recovery that is still lower than its other thermal EOR
(also known as huff and puff method) involves three stages, which counterparts [41]. Wu et al. [48] studied the effect of gas break-
are namely: injecting of steam, soaking period, and production of through (GBT) with cyclic steam and gas stimulation in an off-
oil. In this technique, steam is injected into the well for a period shore heavy oil reservoir. They introduced a new concept for
of time to raise the oil temperature resulting in reduced oil viscos- breakthrough degree and named it gas breakthrough coefficient;
ity, which facilitates its mobility. After ensuring that there is this coefficient depends on some parameters such as reservoir
enough amount of steam in the well, it is shut-in for a period of thickness, permeability, and the injection strength and injection
time extended from few days to few weeks to make sure that the production pressure. Another consideration in CSS is the steam
thermal energy is spread out well, as shown in Fig. 6. Subse- generation process for the system. Early on, some oil field made
quently, the well can produce oil due to the pressure generated by use of the produced crude oil in steam generators through direct
the injected steam. The production continues to a point at which combustion. Environmental as well as economic considerations
its rate decreases significantly to warrant cycle restart as the oil led to the use of other fuels like natural gas in the steam genera-
cools with time resulting from thermal energy losses. The same tion process over time. Those same considerations resulted into
previous steps are repeated again and again, but naturally the targeting other sources like coal, biomass, and solar energy with
effectiveness of this process decreases after few cycles. Li et al. each having different economic and environmental footprint.
[39] conducted experimental and numerical analysis for the huff Apart from the choice of energy source in steam generation,
and buff process using CO2 instead of steam; it was found that at options of using combined power cycle for more efficient energy
the fifth CO2 cycle, the recovered oil reached 31.56%. Every EOR utilization were considered in some occasions. The use of natural
method has its effectiveness, which is measured by the amount of gas, for instance, in a cogeneration power cycle to produce both
oil recovered percent of the total capacity of the well. The maxi- electricity and steam for CSS has been actualized in Californian
mum recovery by CSS is relatively low (around 10–40% of the oil fields with an installed electrical generating capacity of about
OOIP compared with SAGD which has higher recovery average) 2000 MW [49]. Use of solar energy in concentrating solar trough
[40,41]. Smart water, which can be designed by optimizing the for steam generation to be used in EOR systems is another
chemical composition of injected brine, has been carried out by approach that promises huge environmental benefits [50,51].
Jalilian [42] to see its effect on pure limestone carbonate rocks. Another approach involves the combination of CSS with air injec-
Increasing the sulfate ion concentration and reducing the total tion in a process called air assisted cyclic steam stimulation. This
salinity, Jalilian [42] found that the oil recovery factor has method is used for heavy or ultra-heavy oil reservoir after CSS
increased by 14.5%. Low-salinity water flooding has a weak effect became non efficient, where it can compensate for the low reser-
on the oil recovery less than 2%. voir pressure, poor steam sweep efficiency, and high water cut.
In CSS technique, a single well is used interchangeably as a Wang et al. [52] conducted a study on ultra-heavy oil reservoir of
steam injector well and as an oil producer well. Since the steam
used in the process, for practicability, is generated on the surface,
to be injected using surface lines and wellbore, thermal energy
losses from these surfaces need to be considered. Subsequently,
limiting parameters such as reservoir depth, pressure, and lithol-
ogy have to be taken into account for an efficient oil recovery
using steam injection. The steam, after injection, is allowed
enough time to soak (soaking time) due to which its high tempera-
ture (200–300 C) helps reduce oil viscosity while the high pres-
sure (about 1 Mpa) fractures the reservoir rock. As the soaking
time lapses, with oil ready for production, the production time fol-
lows when oil can be produced at high rates. This production con-
tinues, until eventually it begins to rapidly decrease meriting
another steam injection that will trigger another cycle. The three
stages of this cycle can be repeated several times within the limit-
ing case of technical and economic viability [43]. The injection
and soaking times normally takes days or weeks while the produc-
tion time generally takes weeks to months. An optimum injection
time and extension of the soaking time depend on mechanical and Fig. 7 Schematic illustration of steam flooding process

Liaohe oil field (China) using a numerical technique validated
with experimental work and their study revealed that adding air to
CSS can improve oil recovery with 11% increment in oil produc-
tion. Another numerical study in air assisted cyclic steam stimula-
tion had been done by the same authors [53]. It was reported that
the rate of oil recovery is better than CSS besides improvement in
energy efficiency and decrease in CO2 emissions. Leaute et al.
[46] patented a new idea of LASER-CSS, which is summarized as
mixing liquid hydrocarbon with the injected steam instead of
injecting it alone in front of the steam stimulation cycle and that
will improve the recovery efficiency. Lu et al. [54] studied the in
situ formed oil water emulsion droplets transport and plug in
porous media. One of their conclusions was that higher pressures
can displace larger size of oil water emulsion droplets out of the
pore throat and reduce their retention volumes.
5.2 Steam and Hot Water Flooding. Hot water and steam
flooding is a thermal EOR technique, which requires a huge
amount of water or steam to be injected onto high viscous oil in Fig. 8 Schematic illustration of SAGD process
the well to raise its temperature as shown in Fig. 7. 3D sand-
packed displacement model and experimental work have been
developed to simulate the water flooding and immiscible CO2 Consequently, efficient operation and maintenance of the steam
flooding processes [55]. In addition, enhanced heavy oil recovery generators that takes into account the fuel used in the generators,
by immiscible CO2 injection is found to be limited by early gas its availability and cost, as well as feed water treatment and cost
breakthrough due to, mainly, the unfavorable mobility ratio are highly important. From operation viewpoint, the two most
between CO2 and heavy oil. As reported in literature, hot water important challenges in steam flooding are the concerns with
flooding is less efficient than steam injection due to the lower ther- steam override and that of excessive thermal energy losses. The
mal energy content of water [8]. On the other hand, the driving thermal energy loss can be attributed to the losses in surface lines
power of the water is higher than that of the steam. The steam that transfer the steam from its generating unit to the injection
injection process involves continuous steam injection into an oil- wells. Other losses occur during steam passage into the wells
bearing porous medium. This results in the formation of an almost since the steam temperature is much higher than geothermal tem-
constant temperature, slow advancing steam zone around which peratures. Another source of losses occurs inside the reservoir
the viscosity of the oil is drastically reduced thereby increasing oil from the heated portion of the formation to the adjacent lower
mobility. This highly mobilized oil within the steam zone is sub- temperature regions.
jected to a vaporizing gas drive as a result of which the initial oil
saturation is reduced to as low as 10%. Mohebbifar et al. [56]
used Nano and biomaterials simultaneously; they used three types 5.3 Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage. In the case of
of biomaterials including biosurfactant, bioemulsifier, and biopol- SAGD, steam at high pressure is injected continually in a horizon-
ymer besides two types of nanoparticles including SiO2 and TiO2 tal well to provide thermal energy in the well that reduces the oil
at different concentrations as injection fluids. The highest effi- viscosity. The heated well is then drained into a lower well where
ciency of 78% was observed while injecting one pore volume of it is pumped out as shown in Fig. 8. This method is best suited
biopolymer and SiO2 nanoparticles. Steam flooding has a typical for heavy oil extraction in carbonate reservoirs as reported by
recovery factor ranging from 50% to 60% of OOIP. However, Hosseini et al. [64]. These are mostly naturally fractured reser-
being a pattern-driven process, its performance will ultimately voirs but only few studies had been conducted in this area. It is
depend on the pattern size and geology [57,58]. Experimental considered highly promising technique and it needs more work
study has been carried out using steam flooding for reservoir with and research in order to fully attain its potentials. The effect of
ultra-heavy oil as in AL-1 Block, Shengli Oilfield, China [59]. A fracture properties like fracture orientation, fracture spacing, and
numerical study conducted on steam injection in heavy oil fracture permeability on the SAGD performance in naturally frac-
revealed that it improves oil recovery up to 60% during a fixed tured reservoirs was studied by Hosseini et al. [64] through exper-
period of time, and that only 30% of OOIP can be recovered by imentations and modeling using CMG-STARS thermal simulator
hot water injection method [60]. Hossain [61] developed dimen- [15]. Experimentally, the combination of the SAGD and multiple
sionless scaling parameters for thermal flooding in porous media. thermal fluids-assisted gravity drainage process was also tested by
He proposed numbers that measure the thermal diffusivity and the authors. They reported that fracture orientation affects the
hydraulic diffusivity of a fluid in a porous media. steam expansion and oil production from the horizontal well
Another study focusing on heterogeneous heavy oil field located pairs. It is also reported that horizontal fractures have a negative
in southern Oman had been conducted to establish the optimum effect on oil production, while vertical fractures have a higher pro-
thermal energy transfer conditions via steam injection in the reser- duction rate compared to its horizontal counterpart. Similarly,
voir [62]. A CMG-STARS model was developed in the study to increase in fracture permeability was shown to positively improve
simulate steam injection process with the valve control of steam oil production. Furthermore, they reported that an increase in frac-
trap subcooled. They concluded that the valve control gives a faster ture spacing enhances oil production, because in wider fractures,
distribution of thermal energy after steam injection. In addition to the steam accompanied with its thermal energy will take more
that, it gives higher production with low amount of steam required. time to diffuse into matrices and provides thermal energy to the
The use of Nitrogen thermal foam flooding to overcome steam entire reservoir. Literature is available on the use of an optimiza-
override and steam channeling problems was also reported in the tion simulation method called proportional-integral-derivative
literature [63]. It was observed that using nitrogen foaming can coefficient to optimize the steam injection process while achiev-
increase the displacement efficiency of steam flooding from ing higher oil production and lower steam-oil ratio [65].
43.30% to 81.24% in single sand-pack experiment. Process integration tools have been applied in some instances
The economic as well as technical success of steam flooding to improve efficiencies in the SAGD process. This was conducted
process highly depends on the steam generation unit. by Forshomi et al. [66] in which a distributed effluent treatment

system was designed to improve the economics while tackling 73.8%, 47% for CO2, flue gas, N2, respectively, after GBT. These
environmental issues. Different configurations of water treatment results are considered highly acceptable for oil recovery. New
technologies and steam generation options in SAGD were emerging ideas for heavy oil recovery are being proposed to add
employed to target an optimum process. An energy cost savings deep eutectic solvents (DESs) like Choline Chloride, Glycerol
of up to 19.5% and 12% in water treatment system of SAGD oper- (DES1), Choline Chloride, and Urea(DES2) [78]. This process,
ations was reported by the authors simply by diverting flows in when followed by steam injection process, was shown to increase
wastewater streams. Thermal integration of the system was, how- the recovery rate by 12%.
ever, not considered in the study. Artificial intelligence Another hybrid process for improving the EOR process is
approaches are used for predicting SAGD recovery performance called thermal-chemical flooding which is done after steam injec-
and in assisting conventional SAGD analysis [67]. tion. This combination involves steam, nitrogen (N2), and viscos-
In the field, SAGD is considered the most popular in the oil ity breaker. Compared with steam flooding thermal–chemical
sands and extra-heavy crudes of AB [8]. The use of a hybrid ver- flooding had higher displacement efficiency with a ratio 11.7%
sion of SAGD (e.g., injection of solvent with steam) is, however, higher than that of pure steam flooding [79].
at its pilot stage. Some old statistics showed that, in 1993, world-
wide production from cyclic steam and steam drive was more than
700,000 bbl/day. This amount had increased to 919,917 bbl/day in 5.5 Solar-Assisted Steam Injection for Enhance Oil
USA, Canada, Brazil, and Norway in 2013 68. However, the Recovery. Solar thermal steam generation involves production of
steam-based applications are limited to shallow reservoirs, which steam using energy from the sun. The idea has been around since
are less than 3000 feet deep. Horizontal wells are always used in the early 1980s [80]. Mirrors are used to concentrate and focus
SAGD and it is proven to be successful in the field and many stud- sunlight on receivers containing water or brine solution. The
ies are available in the literature in this regard. Recently, vertical heated fluid is then either directly or indirectly used to generate
well as alternative method for SAGD had been developed steam in a flash tank. The use of solar energy reduces the reliance
[69].The well consists of two strings, the first one is used as a pro- on fossil fuels for steam production. However, due to the intermit-
ducer on the bottom and the other is used as an injector on the top, tent nature of solar energy supply, a hybrid system utilizing the
with the distance between injector and producer perforations conventional fossil fuels integrated in a power cycle with the solar
being changed gradually. It is reported by Suranto et al. [69] that thermal steam generation system is utilized. The hybrid system
increasing the steam injection rate directly increases production comes in handy in the absence of solar thermal energy storage
rate. Furthermore, their results showed that vertical well SAGD systems and/or during cloudy weathers and the night time when
can improve the drainage radius to 85 m using both multilevel solar energy is not available.
injector and multi-level injection rate. However, good perform- Glass Point built the first commercial solar enhanced oil recov-
ance of the multi-level injector can be achieved if the injector per- ery (SEOR) project in Kern County, CA [81]. It uses parabolic
foration is moved gradually. They recommended using vertical troughs to heat water and directly produces steam for well injec-
well SAGD in the case of thick reservoir. Vertical wells method tion, generating 300 kW of thermal energy. The parabolic troughs
has advantages like decreasing cumulative steam oil ratio, were kept inside a glasshouse to protect it from dirt and sand
increased drainage area, and enhanced steam chamber volume; as storms. The system was capable of producing steam at 2500 psi
a result, it can increase the efficiency of steam injection. and 950 F. The BrightSource pilot project in Coalinga, CA uses a
solar tower to produce 29 MW of thermal energy capable of gen-
erating 13 MW of electrical energy. It utilizes 3822 heliostats and
5.4 Steam/Solvent Hybrid System. Many researches had is based on a land area of 100 acres [81]. Another pilot project
been done and are still on-going toward the improvement of EOR [51] by Glass Point based in Oman near Amal oilfields utilizes
in terms of efficiency and economics in all its stages. As glass-skinned structure enclosed parabolic trough similar to the
example, start-up process is an important process to take in mind. one in Kern County on a 4.2 acres field. The plant is capable of
Experimental and numerical study, which uses the solvent assisted producing 7 MW of thermal energy, resulting in production of
start-up, has been carried out by Yuan et al. [70], where, injection 14.8 tons of steam per hour at 100 bar having 80% quality. The
of solvent instead of steam near the wellbore was explored. plant is supplemented with a gas-fired steam production system to
Following that, there is a need to improve the sweep area by produce steam at night. For a constant steam rate, the gas con-
high-temperature steam circulation, which also reduces the oil vis- sumption could be reduced by up to 25%. Furthermore, by inject-
cosity. It can be concluded that injection of solvent into an initial ing more steam during the day the gas consumption could be
reservoir can shorten the start-up process and reduce steam con- reduced by up to 80%. Another solar steam plant of 1 GW thermal
sumption. Using injection of solvent with steam to improve the energy is under construction for the same oilfield.
performance of SAGD has been conducted both in a lab scale and The use of solar and conventional steam production technique
actual field. In Refs. [71–76], numerical simulations were reported enables the use of a cyclic method of steam injection. In this
by the authors for the case of SAGD and they found that it short- method, more amount of steam is injected during the day, and dur-
ens the preheating time and reduces steam consumption; also the ing the night, the injection rate is kept at a minimum. This pre-
production rate and the cumulative oil production improve espe- vents closing down injection during the night, which could lead to
cially at the early production period. Steam flooding assisted with problems associated with well start-up and thermal fluctuations
flue gases and n-hexane has been studied experimentally in the lab along the wellbore. Injection during the night can be carried out
by Li et al. [77]. It was reported that the flue gases injected in either using conventional fossil fuel-based steam generation meth-
heavy oil can reduce the oil viscosity and increase the flow capa- ods or using energy from solar thermal energy storage systems. A
bility. It is worth reporting that the n-hexane has more effect than recent study [81] has shown that small amount of nightly steam
that of the flue gases, where it can reduce heavy oil viscosity and injection increases the cumulative oil production in comparison to
surface tension more rigorously. So, the two types have positive no nightly steam injection. However, the effectiveness also
effect on the steam flooding, where the oil recovery efficiency can depends upon the property of oil being recovered. In a study [82],
reach up to 80%. An experiment was carried out in a lab scale by for recovering heavy oil from Hamca field in Venezuela, no sig-
Mohsenzadeh et al. [78] in which nonhydrocarbon gases like pure nificant improvement in oil production was found by injecting
CO2, pure N2, and their mixture as in flue gas were injected into a steam at night regardless of the quantity injected. Thus, the use of
core of a fractured carbonate reservoir. This process is followed 100% solar generated steam was deemed viable in this case.
by steam injection with specific steam/gas ratio. It was concluded Mokheimer and Habib [83] disclosed and granted a patent for
that the injection of these nonhydrocarbon gases with co-injection enhanced oil recovery, which is based on a hybrid system that uti-
of steam gas could enhance the oil recovery values to 58.4%, lizes the solar thermal energy at the day time and oxy-fuel

Fig. 9 Schematic diagram of the hybrid solar thermal EOR system with oxy-fuel combustor, Patent number 9845667B2, Dec.
19, 2017 [83]
combustion at the night time as shown in Fig. 9. At the day time, with constant rate steam injection using conventional steam. The
the solar heater generates steam that is injected into the oil field to oil rate recovery was found to be independent of daily and annual
enhance the oil recovery. At the night time, oxy-fuel combustion cycles for multiple year timescales. Similar conclusions were
system can be utilized, instead, to generate combustion gases, reached by Van Heel et al. [85]. Furthermore, economic analysis
which are mainly carbon dioxide and water vapor in addition to showed that the solar thermal steam generation with 100% solar
oxygen-depleted air (nitrogen). The water vapor is separated from fraction has the lowest operational cost and is least sensitive to
the combustion gases by cooling. The combustion gases and nitro- natural gas prices fluctuations. This also leads to a significant
gen are injected separately into the oil reservoir for the same pur- reduction in CO2 emission from production of crude oil. It should
pose. The carbon dioxide is injected for miscible enhanced oil be noted that the direct normal irradiation received is the primary
recovery, while the nitrogen is injected for immiscible enhanced factor in deciding the feasibility of SEOR projects. It is viable in
oil recovery. areas, which receive high solar radiance throughout the year and
Continuous variable rate injection scenario was investigated by may prove economically unjustifiable for other areas. In a study
Sandler et al. [84] using established reservoir simulation model of by Afsar and Akin [86] using TRNSYS software, a heavy oil field in
steam drive through vertical wells in heavy-oil sand. The model Turkey utilizing parabolic trough collector was observed not to
also accounted for seasonal variations with greater injection rate have enough and available solar power for continuous steam
during summer. The steam injection rate during evening and injection all year round. The maximum solar fraction reached was
night, using conventional steam generation method, was reduced about 42%, which did not economically justify the investment
by 96%. Oil recovery and other parameters were compared with cost of the project.
constant rate injection. The cyclic solar steam injection was at par
6 In Situ Combustion
Among the thermal EOR technologies, in situ combustion and
down-hole heating have great potential as an emerging new tech-
nique of thermal EOR technologies. However, like all other ther-
mal EOR technologies, in situ combustion and down-hole heating
require the use of huge amount of natural fuel (usually gas). Since
all thermal EOR methods suffer from its environmental footprint
due to the associated CO2 emission, the search for new thermal
EOR methods such as in situ combustion and downhole heating
are thought to be the next generation thermal EOR technologies.
In situ combustion, also called “fire flooding,” is one of the
thermal EOR systems being widely used since its inception in the
Fig. 10 Schematic illustration of in situ combustion process early 1950s in USA’s Pennsylvania. Like any conventional

combustion process, it requires fuel, oxidizer, and igniter. How- fuel present per bulk volume of the reservoir as it ultimately deter-
ever, in ISC, the combustion happens inside an oil well, as shown mines the air required to burn a unit bulk volume of the reservoir.
in Fig. 10. The process involves the adequate injection of com- A detailed review of fundamental concepts of ISC as well
pressed, heated air, enriched air, or oxygen into an oil reservoir at as detailed chemical kinetics of the process is carried out by
pressures equivalent to the reservoir pressure. Initial reservoir Mahinpey et al. [94]. An average AOR of 1890 m3-air/m3-oil was
pressures of up to 22 bars [87] are common. The injected air will reported for good performing field projects (equivalent to 302 m3
cause the oxidation of some of the oil components in the reservoir. of air producing 6120 MJ of crude oil energy) [95], but varies
This high temperature oxidation (HTO) process is accompanied under different conditions from 880 to 8860 m3-air/m3-oil [96].
with thermal energy generation (with about 500–900 C in tem- For air at temperature and pressure T1 and P1, respectively, a com-
perature rise), which continues till the temperature reaches the pressor efficiency g, the energy, as a shaft work, Ws required to
ignition temperature [88].Consequently, the mixture will be compress certain volume of air to be delivered at pressure P2 can
ignited establishing a combustion front that releases thermal be estimated using the following equation:
energy and combustion gases like CO2, CO, and H2O, which dis-
solves and displaces the reservoir fluids toward the production

well. Cold air needs to be injected as the combustion front is 1 cRT1 P2 c1
established in order to ensure continuity of the combustion. There Ws ¼ Þ c 1
g c1 P1
are two types of ISC: forward and reverse combustion according
to the direction of oxidizer and combustion front. If the two are in
the same direction, it is called forward; otherwise, it is called where R is the ideal gas constant and c is the ratio of constant
reverse combustion. pressure and volume heat capacities.
It is, however, important to note that for heavy oils and reser- The most important challenges associated with in situ combus-
voirs having low temperatures, the injection well may be heated tion are the combustion temperature and gas override (gravity seg-
through other means to achieve the ignition in the reservoir. Dur- regation) due to density difference between oil and gas, leading to
ing ISC, the reservoir oil undergoes series of physical and chemi- premature combustion zone breakthrough in the producers.
cal changes that include thermal cracking and distillation of Another challenge that arises during oil recovery is a result of
residual crude. Due to the thermal cracking, a solid fuel, in the unfavorable gas/oil ratio due to density variations. Depending on
form of carbon residue, is produced. This fuel that is formed and the lithology, issue related to decomposition of rock, turning into
deposited, together with the distillates produced, sustains the com- a powder-like material, which can easily result into plugging, is
bustion in the presence of oxidizer. The successes recorded for in also a source of concern. Oil fields with limestone lithology are
situ combustion projects as well as some inconclusive or unsuc- shown to be susceptible to such tendencies. Heterogeneity in the
cessful ones over the last decades were reviewed by Alvarado and rock formation can also lead to channeling that could be unfavora-
Manrique [9]. Specifically, in carbonate formations, ISC have ble. Furthermore, fractures resulting from the combustion thermal
shown a steady growth since the end of the 1990s [89]. It has suc- energy release could lead to the release of trapped oxygen that
cessfully been implemented in field-scale applications for heavy impact on the whole system and could even lead to its failure.
oil sandstone reservoirs in Canada, India, Romania, and the USA. Before implementing in situ combustion EOR project on any
In situ combustion presents an opportunity in terms of water reservoir, therefore, feasibility study needs to be conducted to
requirement since the constraints of water availability for steam ascertain its suitability vis-a-vis oil type and nature of the rock in
injection for thermal EOR system is taken care of. Additionally, the reservoir. These studies include the use of thermometric test
the process provides an opportunity in terms of CO2 emission using rigs like thermogravimetric analyzer and differential scan-
reduction to the atmosphere since the products from the combus- ning calorimeter [97].
tion are composed mainly of CO2 and CO that can be collected One of the improvements to in situ combustion process is
and recycled together with the air during subsequent injection. Toe-To-Heel Air Injection (THAI) that combines the process with
Although, as the amount of the recycled gases gets higher with a horizontal well system. In this case, the injection is carried out
time, more oxygen will be needed in the air for combustion to be just like explained before, using vertical well, thereby generating
sustained, which lends credence to air-enriched or oxy fuel com- the burning front. A horizontal well at the bottom of the reservoir
bustion practices [90]. It is reported based on experimental studies is used instead as oil producer in this case [98]. This is said to
that enrichment of air with a 35% volume of oxygen enhances the achieve up to 80% oil recovery [99]. A survey done in 2014 had
overall oil recovery but using 100% oxygen in the process was shown that oil production using thermal EOR (steam, in situ com-
shown to reduce oil recovery [91,92]. Consequently, an optimum bustion, and hot water injection) in the USA has reached
amount of oxygen needs to be established for different scenarios. 307,018 bbl/day [68].
The higher oil recovery tendency of oxygen-enriched ISC can be To increase the mobility of the recovered oil, Hart [100] devel-
the result of higher amount of steam generated in the combustion oped a design for a system that introduces air and ammonia gas
products, which facilitate further the process of dissolution and oil into the subterranean formation during the in situ combustion. Air
displacement for EOR. This higher steam production rate for assists in establishing a combustion front, while ammonia gas
oxygen-enriched air is evident in the steam front velocities of contacts the hydrocarbons ahead of the combustion front and
0.077, 0.084, and 0.110 m/h reported for 21%, 30%, and 35% reacts in situ with naphthenic acid in the hydrocarbon to form a
oxygen by volume in the air, respectively [91]. In a combustion surfactant. Another design by Paurola et al. [101] injects high
tube experiment for crude oil from Liaohe Oilfield in Liaoning temperature oxygen-rich gas into the formation, leading to com-
Province (Bohai Basin), China, it was found that the oil recovery bustion, which reduces the viscosity of said hydrocarbon mixture
factor reach 78.6% and the combustion front movement velocity and generates CO2-rich gas. Hot hydrocarbon is obtained in the
of 0.20 cm/min [93]. recovery stage. Provision to capture at least a portion of CO2 from
Furthermore, ISC is comparatively more energy efficient, said CO2-rich gas is also included.
having relatively lower amount of energy consumed to produce a Canas et al. [102] used ISC in conjunction to SAGD method for
barrel of oil because the HTO process happens directly in the res- hydrocarbon recovery. In addition to horizontal well for steam
ervoir. This energy efficiency is related to the air-to-oil ratio injection, this process also includes another horizontal well for
(AOR) defined as the volume of air needed for injection for the oxidizing gas injection. Hydrocarbons are produced from a hydro-
recovery of a certain volume of oil. AOR is a function of oil satu- carbon production well of the SAGD well pair; this hydrocarbon
ration in place at the beginning of the combustion, the well geom- producing well is located below the steam injection well. The oxi-
etry, as well as the fuel formed and deposited that eventually get dation well is positioned above the two SAGD wells, but closer to
burned [49]. Another critical parameter for ISC is the amount of the surface of the oil reservoir.

In situ combustion process is considered the most effective
method in cases of difficult conditions where the other methods
are not applicable; these conditions might be low permeability,
high temperature, and deep oil reservoirs [105]. This process has
been used in more than two hundred fields around the world; as
mentioned before, it is used in the difficult reservoir as a second-
ary or tertiary process. ISC releases a significant amount of ther-
mal energy accompanied with hot flue gas mixture, which consists
of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and steam, which are considered as a
driving force for oil recovery [106]. But ISC is also considered
one of the complex methods in comparison to other EOR methods
due to complex reactions, heat, and mass transfer.
Habib and Mokheimer [107] proposed a novel solar thermal
EOR system based on ion transport membrane (ITM) oxy-fuel
combustion. The proposed novel system is based on in situ oxy-
combustion that is based on ITM that separates the oxygen from
the air. The separated oxygen is injected into the oil well to burn
part of the well oil generating the required heat for thermal EOR.
The air is heated before entering to the ITM unit as shown in
Fig. 11.
There are two types of ISC, wet and dry. Wet combustion is
considered a way to improve in situ combustion process in com-
parison to dry combustion, where the heat capacity of the steam is
high which enhances the oil recovery process [108]. The amount
of oil in wells required for ISC is 5–10% from the original oil in
place [109]. Due to some difficulties in feasibility studies,
unknown properties, nonhomogeneity of the reservoirs, and differ-
ent components of the crude oil, it has been reported that the
global average success of dry ISC to be only 44.6%, which is con-
sidered low and unsatisfactory. There are some drawbacks, which
Fig. 11 Schematic diagram for a solar-assisted EOR System may decrease the efficiency of the ISC process such as the nonuni-
[107] form advancement of the combustion front, which may decrease
the sweeping efficiency, and presence of a cold oil bank in front
In situ combustion like any combustion process releases the of the mobilized oil, which is considered like a resistance for the
combustion gases to the environment. Das [103] proposed the oil transfer [110].
idea of separating hot nitrogen from the combustion gases coming Much research had been done to improve the in situ combustion
out of the reservoir and utilize it to generate electricity by using process by different techniques; one of them is adding Nanopar-
mobile turbines. Another patent by Warren et al. [104] aims to ticles to the combustion mixture [106,111,112]. Rezaei et al.
improve the ISC performance by using a proper water gas ratio by [111] studied the effect of adding Nanoparticles (NP) experimen-
introducing foaming agent with water in wet ISC. The foam has tally, which may overcome the problem of large particles that
good capability to carry water through heated reservoirs and pre- negatively affects recovery process, and also examined the effect
vents separation from the gas. As a result, more thermal energy is of using Nanoparticles on the thermal behavior of crude oil. Some
transferred through the steam, which increases the oil recovery. extra thermal, magnetic, electrical, and chemical properties had
Fig. 12 In situ combustion schematic temperature profile (adapted from Ref. [96])

been transferred with these NP. Improvement of the rate of original oil’s viscosities, boiling range, and densities [116,118].
combustion and greater combustion front has been noticed by LTO reaction is the process that generates fuel available for com-
Amanam et al. [112] after the addition of 1000 ppm Nanoparticles bustion [119]. It is better to minimize the LTO reactions promo-
(Cu-NP). tion during the in situ combustion of heavy oils as the pre-
As mentioned previously, there are two types of ISC: forward oxidation of the heavy crude at lower temperatures greatly
combustion and backward combustion. Forward combustion is the increases the fuel availability and subsequent air requirements for
only technique so far being practiced in the field. The forward combustion. The major outcome of LTO is Coke production, but
combustion is divided into two categories: dry forward combus- the use of LTO reaction for an extended period can cause the oil
tion and wet forward combustion. In the dry process, only air- or to be permanently trapped in the pores.
oxygen-enriched air is injected into the reservoir, but in the wet
process, air and water are injected into the reservoir simultane- 6.3.2 Negative Temperature Gradient Region. The negative
ously or alternatively. temperature gradient region (NTGR) is an important temperature
region in ISC, where the transition between the LTO and HTO
occurs. In this region, the temperature decreases after increasing.
6.1 Dry Combustion. In dry combustion process, air (or NTGR should be achieved for effective ISC, as failure of the reac-
oxygen-enriched air) is first injected into an injection well, for a tion temperatures to reach NTGR leads to very low oil displace-
short time (few days) and then, the oil is ignited. For ignition pro- ment efficiency. This is because the oxygen addition reactions
cess, different methods can be used such as downhole gas burners, cause vapor phase to contract significantly and make the oil less
electric heaters, or through injection of a pyrophoric agent or a mobile [120]. In NTGR, the global oxygen-uptake rates decrease
hot fluid such as steam. In some cases, auto ignition of the in situ with increasing temperature. The negative temperature gradient
crude occurs; in these cases, the reservoir temperature must be region depends on some parameters like oil and the core proper-
greater than 180 F and the oil sufficiently reactive [113]. ties as well as on the operating conditions. As an example, the
NTGR temperature range for Athabasca bitumen is approximately
6.2 Wet Combustion. Most researches conducted on wet between 300 C and 350 C [121,122].
combustion proved that it is preferred over dry combustion. One 6.3.3 Medium Temperature Reactions. Medium temperature
reason is that, in the dry forward combustion process, large oxidation (MTO) reactions are homogeneous reactions occurring
amount of thermal energy generated during combustion is stored primarily in the gas phase. In MTO, reactions of pyrolysis and dis-
in the sand behind the burning front and is considered as thermal tillation produce mainly hydrogen and some light hydrocarbons in
energy losses not used for oil recovery. Another reason is the gas phase [123]. Most of the hydrocarbons are formed without
higher heat capacity of water than air, so water can absorb and oxidation; however, some oxygen reacts with other hydrocarbons
transport thermal energy many times greater than air. Water is to form heavier hydrocarbon fuels, which are later utilized for
injected together or alternately with air with certain ratios to give combustion at higher temperatures [124]. This process is also
the optimum combustion process. This injected water absorbs known as fuel deposition due to heavy oil residue being deposited
thermal energy from the burned zone, and then it vaporizes, after on the solid matrix [125,126]. Excessive fuel deposition is known
which it passes through combustion front and then releases its to reduce the rate of propagation of the combustion front, while
thermal energy as it condenses in a cool section of the reservoir. lower fuel deposition rate may not provide enough heat to sustain
This leads to faster thermal energy transfer and oil displacement. the combustion front [127]. In clean sands, MTO reactions are
Different zones are generated during the ISC. These zones are considered to be rate determining step [94].
many and some of them are overlapping, and they move in the
direction of air flow. They simply can be summarized to seven 6.3.4 High Temperature Oxidation. In this range of tempera-
zones (as shown in Fig. 12) which are: ture, oxygen reacts with unoxidized oil, fuel, and the oxygenated
compounds to give carbon oxides and water. The thermal energy
(1) The burned zone
generated from these reactions provides the energy required to
(2) The combustion zone (The combustion zone is a very nar-
sustain and propagate the combustion front. MTO is followed by
row region (usually no more than a few inches thick))
HTO reaction, in which fuel formed by MTO is oxidized [124].
(3) Cracking zone
At higher temperatures, oxygen reacts with unoxidized oil, fuel,
(4) Condensation (steam plateau) zone
and the oxygenated compounds to give carbon oxides and water.
(5) Water bank
This reaction zone is the main combustion region inside the reser-
(6) Oil zone
voir. HTO reactions are kinetically controlled and are not affected
(7) The native zone
by diffusion effects. HTO reactions are slower than MTO reac-
tions in clean sand matrix [123]. The heat generated from these
6.3 Chemical Reactions Associated With In Situ reactions provides the thermal energy to sustain and propagate the
Combustion. The chemical reactions involved in ISC are numer- combustion front. The viscosity and specific gravity of the pro-
ous, complex, and occur over different ranges of temperatures. duced oil decrease significantly during HTO [94].
These reactions have been simplified by many researchers and are
grouped into three classes: (1) low temperature oxidation (LTO), 6.4 Draw Backs of In Situ Combustions. In situ combustion
(2) intermediate temperature, and (3) HTO or combustion of the has some drawbacks, which can be summarized as:
solid hydrocarbon residue (coke). The control of ISC process is difficult.
Safety issues such as avoiding uncontrolled oxygen break-
6.3.1 Low Temperature Oxidation. Low temperature oxida-
through.
tion is highly complex and not easy to understand, but it is
Numerous reactions and huge number of components.
believed that it consists of condensation of low-molecular-weight
components to higher molecular weight products. It occurs below In situ combustion, as mentioned before, is considered the
400 F and yields water and partially oxygenated hydrocarbons promising thermal EOR techniques as it is applicable in a much
such as carboxylic acids, aldehydes, ketones, alcohols, and hydro- wider range of fields than only heavy oil fields. It is particularly
peroxides [114]. LTO is considered an oxygen addition reaction good in deeper reservoirs of light or medium oil. The major draw-
and is caused by the dissolution of oxygen in the crude oil. Light back of ISC is that it is considered complicated method in terms
oils are more affected to LTO than heavy oils. It has been found of safety particularly in avoiding oxygen break-through. Another
that LTO increases the asphaltene content of the oil and decreases drawback is the insufficient coke deposited from the oil that could
its aromatic and resin contents [115–117]. LTO increases the not sustain the combustion process. Also, the excessive amount of

fuel deposited leads to decrease in the combustion rate as the the commercial simulation software Steam, Thermal, and
amount of injected air is considered small. Other drawbacks, Advanced Process Reservoir Simulator (STARS) 2007.10 version
which may decrease the efficiency of the ISC process, include the developed by Computer Modelling Group Ltd. (CMG). The simula-
nonuniform advance of the combustion front, which may decrease tor allows for four phases (oil, water, gas, and solid fuel). It accu-
the sweeping efficiency, and presence of a cold oil bank in front rately models all the important physical and chemical processes
of the mobilized oil, which is considered like a resistance for the taking place during the in situ combustion process. The dead oil
oil transfer [110]. used in this study was subdivided into two pseudo-components: a
medium oil pseudo-component (C6–C29) with a molecular weight
of 254.2 and a heavy oil pseudo-component (C30–C44) with a
6.5 In Situ Combustion Models. Crude oil contains hun- molecular weight of 781.3. According to the reaction rate, the
dreds of different compounds, which makes it very difficult to rep- kinetic-controlled reaction model had been considered by the simu-
resent all the reactions, and almost impossible to simulate it. lator, and four chemical reactions included are three HTO combus-
Consequently, most studies use a simplified model based on the tion reactions and one cracking reaction as shown:
Arrhenius reaction expressions defined as Refs. [123] and [128]
Cracking : 12:1 Heavy oil ! :1 721 Medium oil þ 33 4: COKE
dCf
Rc ¼ ¼ KpaO2 Cbf
dt Medium oil oxidation :
00:1 Medium oil þ 22 6: O2 ! 18H2 O þ 15CO2
where, Rc: the reaction rate of the crude oil, Cf: the concentration
of fuel, pO2: the oxygen partial pressure, K: the reaction rate con-
stant, a, b: the orders of the reactions with respect to oxygen par- Heavy oil oxidation :
tial pressure and fuel concentration, respectively. 00:1 Heavy oil þ 8:9 O2 ! 5:9 H2 O þ 21CO2
K ¼ A exp ðE=RTÞ Coke oxidation : 00:1 COKE þ 18:1 O2 ! 5:0 H2 O þ 95:0 CO2
where; A, the Arrhenius constant, E, the activation energy, T, the It is concluded in the study that oil recovery increases with
absolute temperature, R, the universal gas constant. increasing water injection ratios until it reaches an optimum value
Kinetic parameters can be determined using a variety of experi- and then it starts to decrease. Higher initial oil saturations
mental techniques, and it could be obtained from the literature and operating pressure presented higher oil recovery factors.
[120]. As mentioned before, authors grouped the reaction model Water–air alternation resulted in a negligible effect.
into pseudo-components of similar properties. Selection of the Yang and Gates [133] studied experimentally the combustion
pseudo-components must model the phase behavior of the original using Athabasca Bitumen in a 1D combustion tube to obtain a set
hydrocarbons. So, the oil results are characterized in terms of of kinetic parameters and transport parameters for the system.
Maltenes and Asphaltenes or in terms of saturates aromatics, res- From the literature, there are different available schemes; these
ins, and asphaltenes (SARA) fractions [129]. schemes differ due to their definitions of pseudo-components. In
The first proposed reaction model for LTO was done by Adeg- this study, they used the one developed by Belgrave et al. [134]
besan et al. [130]. They proposed the model for Maltenes, Asphal- for Athabasca bitumen as shown:
tenes, and Coke for the Athabasca Bitumen. The used reaction
mechanism is: (1) Thermal-cracking reactions (first order):
Maltenes þ O2 ! Asphaltenes Maltenes ! 0:372 Asphaltenes
Asphaltenes þ O2 ! Coke Asphaltenes ! 83:223 Coke
Sequera et al. [131] proposed another model for LTO, but used Asphaltenes ! 37:683 Gas
SARA components. This model provides acceptable results:
(2) LTO reactions
Aromatics þ O2 ! Resine 1 þ Aromatics
Maltenes þ 3:431 O2 ! 0:4726 Asphaltenes
Resine 1 þ Aromatics þ O2 ! Asphaltenes þ CO2 þ H2 O
Asphaltenes þ 7 : 513 O2 ! 101:539 Coke
Resines þ Resine 1 þ O2 ! Asphaltenes þ CO2 þ H2 O (3) HTO or coke combustion
Asphaltenes ! Saturates þ Coke þ CO2 cokeCH1:13 þ 1:232 O2 ! COx þ 0:565 H2 O
Hayashitani [132] proposed model for MTO reaction to model the (4) Gas phase combustion
fuel deposition process and gas production within the MTO:
CH4 þ 2O2 ! CO2 þ 2H2 O
Maltenes þ O2 ! Asphaltenes
Gas þ 2O2 ! 0:9695CO þ CO2 þ 2H2 O
Asphaltenes ! Coke
They conducted the simulation using The STARSTM thermal res-
Asphaltenes ! Gas ervoir simulator (CMG, 2007). In their conclusion, they suggested
from their results that coke is originated from the LTO not from
A numerical model has been proposed by Gonçalves and Trevisan the thermal cracking as known, so it is important to control the
[108] to simulate the wet forward ISC process of a combustion tube LTO for sufficient combustion process.
experiment with the properties of an onshore heavy oil field located Kapadia et al. [135] proposed a kinetic model for combustion
at Espırito Santo state in Brazil. Analysis of different parameters of the Athabasca Bitumen, which include thermal cracking, LTO,
had been done such as water–air ratio, initial saturations, operating HTO, gasification, water–gas shift reaction, methanation, hydro-
pressure and water–air alternation. The study was conducted using gen generation, hydrogen and monoxide combustion, as shown:

Journal of Energy Resources Technology
Table 1 Thermal EOR systems: advantages, disadvantages, and limits
Examples Permeability Porosity Depth Viscosity Reservoir API Oil Special Improvements to Cost
Method (Location) limits (mD) limits (%) limits (ft) limits (cP) pressure (psi) gravity saturation (%) features the process source Advantages Drawbacks
1. Hot fluid injec-

tion processes
1.1 Cyclic steam -Canada, Minimum: 2000 Minimum: 20 [136] Minimum: 1000 Minimum: 300 <4000 <20 20 -steam temperature: -using horizontal Cost of steam -Rapid payout -Low recovery
stimulation Venezuela, Brazil, [136] Maximum: 3000 [136] 200–300 C wells generation by: during early pro- (around 10–40%)
USA (CA) [44] [136] -used as a first -add chemicals to -coal-biomass duction [44]. [40,41,136]
stage before contin- steam- using -solar [50,51] -environmentally -Consume large
uous injection AICSS -natural gas [49] preferred [137]. quantities of water
-using hydraulic -Preferable with and fuel, so it is
fracturing [46,47] small thicknesses costly.
[137].
1.2 Steam and hot -Minimumfor -For steam 36-For -For steam -Minimumfor -For steam: -For steam: 20 [136] -Requires a huge -Using N2 thermal -Steam generators -higher water -Less efficient than
water flooding steam : 100 water 15 [136] 500–3000-Max. steam: 300 <4000 <20 amount of water or foam flooding can -Fuel used driving power steam injection [8]
-For water: 3–2800 for water: 10,000 Maximum for -For steam to be injected improve RF from -Feed water -Steam flooding -Steam override
[136] water: 2000 [136] water >14 [8] around 43% to 81% treatment has RF 50–60% of -Excessive thermal
OOIP [57,58] energy loss
1.3 Steam assisted Canada (Alberta) Minimum: 50 [136] Minimum: 18 [136] Maximum: 5000 50:350,000 [136] <4000 [136] 20 [136] -The best for heavy - conducting with -High cost of -Oil recovery (%): -Consumes large
gravity drainage [8] [136] oil recovery in car- distributed effluent steam production 60–80 [63] quantities of water
bonate reservoir treatment system -Much more eco- and fuel.
[64] [66] nomic than CSS, as
-injecting of sol- the efficiency is
vent with steam twice
-using vertical
wells [69]
1.4 Steam/ solvent Is used with any steam injection process such as steam flooding and SAGD. -at start up then fol- -Shorten the start-
hybrid system lowed by steam up process
injection process.- -improve the pro-
Examples of duction rate at early
solvents: production period.
1. Glycerol (DES1) [70]
2. Urea (DES2) -Reduce the steam
consumption [70]
-oil recovery effi-
ciency reached
80%
1.5 Solar enhanced -USA (CA) -Oman Is used with any steam injection processes. -lower operating -Available solar
oil recovery [51] -Venezuela cost compared with energy only in the
[82] -Turkey [86] Natural gas. day time.-Thermal
-Reduction in CO2 storage system is
Emission. required.
MARCH 2019, Vol. 141 / 030801-13
2. In situ Canada, India, < 10 [96] 16–38 [96] 300–11500 [96] <5000 [96] -up to 22 bar [87] 1O-4O [96] 700 bbl/ac-ft. [96] -No depth limit -using (THAI) -CO2, CO reduc- -Decomposition of
combustion Romania, USA with taking in mind which use horizon- tion. rock turning into
[46] the injection tal wells [98]. -more energy effi- powder-heteroge-
pressure cient neity leads to chan-
-allows wider well neling
spacing than steam -High Capital and
operating Expendi-
ture requirements
[136]
-Planning and com-
bustion design
requirements is
more difficult than
steam injection.
-Limitation of
numerical
simulation

030801-14 / Vol. 141, MARCH 2019
Table 1 (continued)
Examples Permeability Porosity Depth Viscosity Reservoir API Oil Special Improvements to Cost
Method (Location) limits (mD) limits (%) limits (ft) limits (cP) pressure (psi) gravity saturation (%) features the process source Advantages Drawbacks
3. Electric heating -Enhance the heat- -using water injec- -Production rate is -decreasing the
method ing effect espe- tion with it [14], or 7.6% higher than heat transferred by
cially in the low use it with solvent- the SAGD/CSS water
permeability zone. use it with SAGD methods. [138]
[16] -Efficient to
increase the tem-
perature of the sur-
rounding fluid.
[138]
-Does not require
the additional
investments
required for a steam
distribution system
4. Electromagnetic -Using microwave -reduction of car-
method absorber [33]-using bon emissions
it with solvent -minimize exces-
injection-with sive water usage
SAGD gives good -increases energy
results [27], and Saving
nano-particles [24]
Table 2 One case study for each process
Example Temperature Porosity Depth Viscosity Reservoir API AOR, Average oil
Method (location) (F) (%) (ft) (cP) pressure (psi) gravity Mscf/bbl Prod., B/D Notes References
1. Hot fluid injection processes

1.1 Cyclic steam stimulation Alta province, Cold Lake, 55 32 1395 10 — -area ¼ 32 acres [89]
Canada 2002
1.2 Steam flooding San Ardo, CA 32 2100 12 253 -area ¼ 700 acres [89]
1.3 Steam assisted gravity drainage Orion, Canada 2007 60 33 1350 10 10,000 - area ¼5120 acres [89]
1.4 Steam/solvent hybrid system North Burbank, CA, 2007 16.8 2900 39 -area ¼ 480 acres [89]
Transactions of the ASME
1.5 Solar enhanced oil recovery Bati Raman field, Southeast 535–635 10.8–20 1722 m 1800–2000 9.5–13.5 45 -steam injected [86]
Turkey [study] 250–2000 bpd
2. In situ combustion Balaria field, Romani 118 30 2625 120 284.5 :570 19 14 750 [139,140]
3. Electric heating methods Bakers field, CA 120 1400 14.3 14.3 10–20 -total power output 25.7 kW [141]
-Voltage 600 V
-Inrush Current (at 20 C) 69 amps
4. Electromagnetic method Wildmere field, AB, Canada 600 20 Pa s 3.18 tons/day [31]

Thermal cracking reaction [132]: and hot water injection) in the USA has reached 307,018 bbl/day
in 2014. Our review also revealed that many numerical and
Maltenes ! 0:372164 Asphaltenes experimental investigations had been carried out with the aim of
developing different EOR techniques, many of which were intro-
Asphaltenes ! 83:223 Coke duced and discussed in this paper. Different steam injection tech-
niques like pure steam or steam with different additives had been
Asphaltenes ! 25:2965 Gas discussed. Steam flooding has a typical recovery factor ranging
from 50% to 60% of OOIP. Steam injection techniques are con-
LTO reaction [130]: sidered the dominant among all EOR techniques, as steam has
higher energy content and can easily be produced.
Maltenes þ 3:431 O2 ! 0:4726 Asphaltenes Depending upon the permeability of the well and the depth, dif-
ferent steam injection techniques can be used to effectively extract
Asphaltenes þ 7:513 O2 ! 101:539 Coke residual oil from the well. Cyclic steam stimulation are mostly used
in wells with permeability above 2000 mD, while steam/hot water
HTO reaction [130]: flooding and SAGD can be used in wells with minimum permeabil-
ity of 3–100 mD. Oil from depths of up to 10,000 ft can be
cokeCH1:13 þ 1:232 O2 ! 0:899CO2 þ 0:1CO þ 0:565 H2 O extracted using hot water flooding while SAGD technique is used
High temperature gas oxidation Reaction [133]: for oil wells, which are less than 5000 ft deep and steam flooding
can produce oil from wells up to 3000 ft. SAGD technique is widely
CH4 þ 2O2 ! CO2 þ 2H2 O used in oil fields in Canada (AB) with relatively high oil recovery:
60–80%. The maximum recovery by CSS is relatively low (around
Gas þ 2O2 ! 0:9695CO þ CO2 þ 2H2 O 10–40% of the OOIP compared with SAGD, which has higher
recovery average). Cyclic Steam stimulation fields can be found in
Hydrogen generation reaction: different countries such as Canada, Venezuela, Brazil, and USA
(CA). Worldwide production from cyclic steam and steam drive
Coke þ H2 O ! CO þ H2 was more than 700,000 bbl/day. This amount had increased to
919,917 bbl/day in USA, Canada, Brazil, and Norway in 2013.
CO þ H2 O ! CO2 þ H2 In situ combustion is also considered one of the important EOR
methods. It can work at initial reservoir pressures of up to 22 bars,
Hydrogen Consumption reaction: and the amount of the required well oil, to be burned, for ISC is
5–10% from the original oil in place. It was found that the oil
Coke þ 2H2 ! CH4 recovery factor reaches 78.6% in laboratory experiment using
crude oil from Liaohe Oilfield in Liaoning Province (Bohai
H2 þ 0:5O2 ! H2 O Basin), China. ISC fields can be found in Canada, India, Romania,
and USA. The review revealed that an average of air–oil ratio of
Carbon monoxide Reaction: 1890 m3-air/m3-oil was reported for good performing field
projects (equivalent to 302 m3 of air producing 6120 MJ of crude
Coke þ 2H2 ! CH4 oil energy), but varies under different conditions from 880 to
8,860 m3-air/m3-oil. Also, it was reported that the global average
H2 þ 0:5O2 ! H2 O success of dry ISC is only 44.6%, which is considered low and
unsatisfactory. ISC techniques can be used over a wide range of
well conditions. It can be used for wells with permeability lower
than 10 mD and depth of up to 11,500 ft. However, ISC EOR tech-
7 Evaluation of Different Thermal Enhanced Oil niques still have their own difficulties of design requirements as
Recovery Systems well as their high capital and operational cost in comparison to
Evaluation of different EOR methods in comparison with each hot fluid injection technique.
other does not necessarily have credibility due to several parame- Electric and electromagnetic techniques with some additives
ters distinguishing the processes. These parameters such as crude were introduced and were seen to allow considerable room for
oil properties whether it is heavy or extra heavy. Other parameters improvement to their performance. Using renewable energy such as
include the properties and geography of the well such as perme- solar energy in EOR is considered the most promising technique
ability, porosity, area, depth, and available thermal energy. Due to for several economic and environmental reasons, such as solar-
all of these reasons, it is difficult to compare thermal EOR with assisted EOR fields in USA (CA), Oman, Venezuela, Turkey.
each other. But we can mention the reported features from the lit- Advantages and disadvantages of all thermal EOR techniques
erature for each method, as shown in Table 1. Table 2 contains a had been highlighted. For future work, the combination between
detailed case study for each technique. these conventional methods and renewable energy should be
explored. The ultimate target is to decrease the cost required for
heating while keeping the environmental footprint of the used
8 Summary and Conclusions EOR technique as minimum as possible.
A comprehensive review on thermal EOR methods has been
presented in this paper. Oil recovery can reach as high as 75% of Acknowledgment
OOIP, depending on the employed EOR technique. In 2013, the
global EOR market was 2.681 billion barrels, and is expected to The authors of this article highly appreciate and acknowledge
exceed 16 billion barrels by the year 2020, with a compounded the support provided by the DSR of King Fahd University of
annual growth rate of 29.9%. The revenue from the global Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) through the Internal Funded
enhanced oil recovery will reach around 80 USD Billions by Project No. IN151010.
2020.This review paper has been focused on thermal EOR as it is
widely used around the world for several decades and it is still Nomenclature
being developed. Thermal EOR is the dominant method employed
AOR ¼ air oil ratio
for EOR globally with 67% global usage. The review indicated
API ¼ American Petroleum Institute
that oil production using thermal EOR (steam, in situ combustion,

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A Comprehensive Review of Thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery: Techniques

Esmail M. A. Mokheimer Mohamed Hamdy

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Raghib Shakeel M. A. Habib

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Solar thermocatalytic reforming of natural gas View project

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Journal of Energy Resources Technology Copyright V

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1 Introduction which gives an indication to the importance of this process in the

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4 Electrical and Electromagnetic Heating

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Maltenes þ O2 ! Asphaltenes Maltenes ! 0:372 Asphaltenes

Asphaltenes þ O2 ! Coke Asphaltenes ! 83:223 Coke

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Table 1 Thermal EOR systems: advantages, disadvantages, and limits

1. Hot fluid injec-

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Table 2 One case study for each process

1. Hot fluid injection processes

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