Temperature dependency of relative permeability of oil and water, irreducible water saturation, and residual oil saturation were measured for sandpack of silica and limestone. And, on the basis of the results obtained, mechanisms of oil displacement in the forward in-situ combustion process were discussed.
Results are summarized as follows.
(1) The relative permeability of both oil and water decreases with increasing temperature for both silica and limestone sandpacks.
(2) The relative permeability of oil for silica sandpack is higher than that for limestone sandpack, though the relative permeability of water for both silica and limestone sandpacks did not show the difference.
(3) The irreducible water saturation increases and the residual oil saturation decreases with increasing temperature for both silica and limestone sandpacks. In comparison of residual oil saturation for both sandpacks, that for limestone sandpacks is higher, while the irreducible weter saturation for silica sandpack is higher than that for limestone sandpack.
(4) The mobility of oil in the steam bank is higher than that in the virgin zone because of the higher temperature. However, it does not increase drastically as expected from the temperature dependency of oil viscosity because of the counter nature of oil viscosity and relative permeability of oil with temperature.
(5) The wide portion of oil bank is not heated up by the heat liberated by combustion, so that the mobility of oil in the oil bank is little improved. However, the movable oil increases due to the nature of decreasing residual oil saturation with increasing temperature because of the temperature increase at the back part of the oil bank. This effect may result in the higher oil recovery.
View full abstract