The Charco Redondo Steam Flood Pilot Data Analysis
Authors: Haynes S. , Fontaine M.F. , Teasdale T.S. 
Published: December 2007

American institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, Inc.

This paper was prepared for the Improved Oil Recovery Symposium of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME, to be held in Tulsa, Okla., March 22–24, 1976. Permission to copy is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words. Illustrations may not be copied. The abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is usually granted upon request to the Editor of the appropriate journal provided agreement to give proper credit is made. provided agreement to give proper credit is made. Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Society of Petroleum Engineers office. Such discussion may be presented at the above meeting and with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines.

Field data obtained during a highly instrumented experimental steam flood were used to calculate heat losses from the injection wellbore and to the over- and underlying formations during progressive thermal front movement. progressive thermal front movement. The measured instantaneous and cumulative heat losses were compared to predicted values. The agreement between predicted values. The agreement between the measured and predicted values substantiates that reliable heat loss predictions could be made with predictions could be made with confidence.

As a result of these experiments, a new predictive procedure was developed and is presented.

Introduction

Heat input requirement is the major factor in the design of a steam flood process. The amount of heat actually process. The amount of heat actually retained by a reservoir undergoing steaming is an important design variable. Also, steam loses heat during transportation through surface lines, injection wellbores, and by conduction from the reservoir to the over- and underlying formations. Subsurface heat losses can be determined using the methods substantiated by the Charco Redondo steam flood pilot. The monitoring operations used to obtain these data are described in a companion paper. From this flood, experimental paper. From this flood, experimental data were obtained which were needed to calculate the heat losses from the (1)steam injection wellbore, and (2)reservoir area affected by the steam flood.

WELLBORE HEAT LOSSES

Temperature Distribution

Methods were developed to predict heat lost from the injection well so that the amount of heat entering the sand, face could be determined. This loss was ascertained using the temperature distribution measured by thermocouples in the near wellbore vicinity, as shown in the upper portion of Figure 1. The temperature histories observed for these thermocouples are shown in the bottom of Figure 1. These data indicate that the wellbore temperature slowly decreased during the entire time of steam injection.