SPE 126100

Performance of Hot Water Injection in Heterogonous Reservoirs using

Multilateral Wells
Abdullah F. Alajmi, SPE; Ridha Gharbi, SPE; Meshal Algharaib, SPE; Kuwait University

Copyright 2009, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2009 SPE Saudi Arabia Section Technical Symposium and Exhibition held in AlKhobar, Saudi Arabia, 0911 May 2009.
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reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum
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Abstract
The use of multilateral wells in the oil industry has increased rapidly during the last decade. The main reason for this
upsurge is that these wells provide large contact areas with the reservoir and therefore better recovery performance is achieved.
In addition, the availability of new technologies in recent years has substantially reduced the cost of drilling these wells. In
fact, in many areas of the world, drilling multilateral wells is becoming the norm when deciding to drill new wells.
Furthermore, the continuous growth in the world oil demand stimulates the oil producers to develop all kind of resources
including heavy oil reserves. The significant heavy oil accumulations already existed in the world has led to a greater
emphasis on their development using thermal EOR methods. This study investigates numerically the performance of using
multilateral well configurations in recovering heavy oil from heterogeneous reservoirs using hot water flooding. In order to
cover a wide range of heterogeneity, a series of reservoir permeability maps, each with different permeability structures and
variations, were generated stochastically. In each of these heavy oil reservoirs, extensive three-dimensional, fine-mesh
simulation runs were performed using different configurations of multilateral wells. The oil recovery performance obtained by
hot water flooding was compared to that obtained by conventional water flooding in all these reservoirs. The objective was to
determine the functional relationships between the oil recovery performance and several design parameters including: (1)
degree of heterogeneity (2) well configurations, and (3) viscosity ratio. Results show that these parameters play important
roles in the displacement behavior of heavy oil using multilateral wells, with reservoir heterogeneity having a more significant
effect. The study suggests that there exist critical values of these parameters under which hot water floods can be more
effective than conventional water floods. The paper will present these conditions in detail and situation where the performance
of hot water floods can be ineffective.
Introduction
The expansion of industry and increase in world population make the world oil consumption continuously increasing.
The world oil demand is expected to reach 120 million by 2030 (DOE, USA 2006). Oil primary recovery can only recover
around one-third of the world oil reserves. This fact forces the oil producing countries to find and search for methods to
recover more oil. Recently, Mahroos (2005) highlighted the future challenges for producing Middle East oilfields during the
maturation stage. In the Middle East, there are about 93 giant oil fields each of them holding oil reserves of one billion barrels
and above. The total reserves of these fields are 600 billion barrels. In his paper, the author illustrates the challenges, which
will be faced by the Middle East Oil fields in maintaining oil production at the present rate or more and provides direction
towards possible solutions. Farouq Ali (2003) emphasized that the heavy oil resources are on the order of 8 trillion barrels in
place located in many countries. In his paper, he reported that the current world production of heavy oil is around 3.5 million
barrel per day. The continuous growth in world oil demand stimulates oil producers to develop these resources. For example,
Kuwait is looking to produce 25% of the future projected country's production. Several published literature has indicated the
existence of heavy oil deposits in the Middle East (Milhem and Ahmed, 1987; Madhava et al., 1983; Rice, 1991; Sivakumar,
2001). A study conducted by Rice (1991) stated that 12.6 billion STB of medium to heavy oil are originally in place in
Southern Oman. The oil viscosities range from 80 to 4000 cp and the oil production rates are dominated by viscous forces. The
results of the study indicated a large scope of increasing oil recovery by thermal EOR methods.
Heavy oil deposits occupy large percent of the world oil reserves. This unconvional oil requires unconvional methods of
recovery. Thermal recovery techniques are one of the common EOR methods that usually used to improve recovery from
reservoirs containing heavy oils. The basic process concept involved in thermal recovery processes is to generate hot fluid on
the surface or in situ and inject it through an injection well into an oil bearing formation. The hot fluid will heat the oil and

SPE 126100

displace it toward the producing well where it is pumped to the surface.

Hot water flooding is the least expensive thermal recovery techniques and it is similar to conventional water flooding
procedure, (Farouq Ali, 1974). Although heat carrying capacity of water is less than steam, hot water offers displacement
force advantages than for steam (Diaz-Munoz, 1975). Martin et al. (1968) presented a case study of a hot water flood pilot test
in the Loco field in southern Oklahoma. The main objective of the pilot was to obtain technical information and operating
experience in a reservoir containing oil with 600 cp. Hot water flood was carried out after the conventional water flood was
well past its economic limit. The hot water flood showed an increase oil recovery. Cassinat et al. (2002) presented a case study
of the Senex field located in Northern Alberta, Canada, which contains a 37 API crude with high paraffin content in a low
permeability shelf carbonate. The objective of the study was to optimize the water flood performance by utilizing hot water
injection. Parametric reservoir modeling indicated that overcoming viscous effects through hot water injection may
significantly increase the recovery as much as 25%.
In laboratory work, Bousaid (1991) conducted a laboratory work. Hot-water and steam flood experiments were
conducted in a five-foot linear cell. The effect of injection rate of 240 F water and steam was studied for the Kern River
viscous oil (13 API) using a fine graded silica sand. It was found that hot water floods can mobilize the oil effectively at
205F and above. A residual oil saturation of 18% can be expected near the injection well using hot water with 240F
temperature. Okasha et al. (1998) investigated the displacement and dispersion of tarmat by combining solvent and hot water
injection to improve aquifer support. They concluded that the gain in recovery for hot water over cold water is substantial in
the presence of tarmat.
Numerically, Goodyear et al. (1996) used a sector model of a high permeability reservoir containing oil with 400 cp,
underlain by a large aquifer. Their study showed that hot water flooding can recover significant quantities of incremental oil,
up to 18% of the original oil in place. A risk management study was also reported in which sensitivities to parameters such as
vertical to horizontal permeability ratio, heterogeneity, and relative permeability were investigated. The optimal choice of the
injection well position was considered for cold and hot water flooding and was shown to be strongly determined by the vertical
to horizontal permeability ratio. Al-Shatti et al. (2006) presented a simulation study to evaluate the performances of steam and
hot water floods in exploiting heavy oil deposits from a Middle Eastern reservoir. They concluded that the effect of enhancing
the displacement efficiency is more pronounced than the effect of reducing oil viscosity in terms of oil recovery for this
reservoir. Therefore, they suggested applying hot water flooding instead of steam flood in developing this heavy oil deposits.
Furthermore, Alajmi et al. (2005) presented a study in which they investigated the heavy oil recovery by Hot water flooding
under different patterns (line drive and 5-spot) with different well configurations at different injected water temperature in
homogenous reservoirs. They concluded that injection well length had a significant effect on heavy oil recovery.
Technology plays a major role in increasing the world oil reserves and recovering more oil. The use of horizontal wells
in oil industry has increased rapidly during the last decades. The employment of horizontal wells instead of vertical wells is
thought to improve the oil production and increases the sweep efficiency. Therefore, the utilization of horizontal wells, instead
of vertical ones, in enhanced oil recovery processes became attractive for the oil industry. Algharaib and Gharbi (2005)
studied the advantages of Horizontal/Multilateral wells over the conventional vertical wells. They compared the performance
of four Horizontal/Multilateral well configurations to that of the vertical wells in waterflooding operations. Their study shows
that the pattern used has a significant effect on the displacement performance. At the high oil prices, the application of
horizontal wells in thermal recovery methods received an increasing interest at present time. Zerpa and Intevep (1995)
investigated the application of horizontal wells to improve oil recovery and control water invasion in a heavy oil field.
Simulation results show that the utilization of horizontal wells reduces the water invasion into oil zone. It also indicates that
the optimum horizontal well length, to be used in the field, is in the range of 800 to 1200 feet. For improving oil recovery,
they found that the use of cyclic steam injection using horizontal wells yield an oil production improvement of approximately
3% per cycle. Fernandez et. al. (1996) evaluated the application of multilevel injector/producer wells in thick heavy oil
reservoirs. Drilling several horizontal branches at different levels of the reservoir would create thinner drainage areas which
might enhance the attractiveness of thick reservoirs for thermal recovery applications. They concluded that the vertical spacing
is not even and it depends on the crude oil viscosity. Escovedo (1995) proposed a new conceptual designing method to
illustrate the impact of customizing the geometry of horizontal wells for steam flooding projects. The method involves the
optimization of horizontal well geometry with due consideration to the expected shape of the steam zone. Knowing the shape
of the steam zone, wells can be set to maximize the sweep efficiency of steam before steam breakthrough and/or to minimize
the consequences associated with steam interference in producing wells. Chona and Hazlett (1996) studied the optimization of
horizontal infill wells in a cyclic steam project. They found that productivity of horizontal wells is a function of well location
within the oil column, steaming schedule, injection rate, and the interaction with vertical wells undergoing cyclic operations.
El-Abbas and Shedid (2001) conducted a number of laboratory experiments to investigate the recovery of heavy oil using
steam flooding through horizontal wells. The experimental setup used a well configuration in which a horizontal well is used
as a steam injector while a vertical well is used as a producer. In addition, their investigations involve the addition of some
chemical to steam to further enhance the recovery of heavy oil. They concluded that well configuration that they used in their
experiments substantially improved oil recovery. Zhou et. al (1995) conducted a series of scaled Steam flood laboratory
experiments to evaluate the performance of horizontal/vertical well configuration in a heavy oil deposits in China. The scaled
model involves two vertical wells and four horizontal wells which corresponded to injectors or producers. The results show

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that the horizontal injector-horizontal producer configuration was the best configuration with 54% oil recovery compared with
35% for a baseline experiment that uses the conventional vertical well. Moreover, further improvement to the recovery can be
achieved by increasing the steam flow rate. Bernd (2001) presented a study in which horizontal wells were used to enhanced
hydrocarbon recovery from a reservoir that underwent a number of thermal recovery processes. In the study, three horizontal
wells, which are utilized as producers, surround a vertical steam injector well. This well configuration showed a significant
improvement in the performance as compared to the earlier production history where only vertical wells were utilized.
The reservoir condition has great impact on the performance of EOR techniques. For example, reservoir heterogeneity
can be a factor to influence the EOR technique performance efficiency in the oil displacement. Ellison and Clayton (1995)
used reservoir simulation tools to understand the performance of steam flood applications in a heterogeneous reservoir. They
concluded that steam flood performance improves as reservoir quality and oil saturation improves, clay content decreases, and
dip becomes more pronounced. Steam flood performance found to be related directly to the reservoir quality in which the path
of steam flow was significantly influenced by reservoir heterogeneity. Gharbi et al. (1997) investigated the performance of
enhanced oil recovery processes with horizontal and vertical wells in heterogeneous reservoirs. They studied the sensitivity of
the displacement performance to the horizontal well length and the ratio of horizontal to vertical permeability using various
well combinations. They showed that the degree and the structure of the reservoir heterogeneity have a significant effect on
the efficiency of EOR processes with horizontal wells.
The effect of reservoir heterogeneity on the heavy oil recovery by hot water is yet to be investigated. In this work, the
study investigated the functional relationships between several design parameters and the displacement performance of heavy
oil during hot water flood. The investigated parameters are:
(1) Reservoir heterogeneity degree
(2) Oil viscosity
(3) Multilateral injection well length

Methodology
In order to achieve the objectives of this study, a commercial reservoir simulator (ECLIPSE) was used. Extensive
numerical simulation runs were performed to investigate the effect of several parameters mentioned above on the displacement
performance of heavy oil recovery. The performance of multilateral injector wells and vertical producer well at different
degrees of reservoir heterogeneity, reservoir oil viscosities and horizontal well lengths are investigated. To demonstrate the
effect of these parameters, the heavy oil recovery at 3 water pore volume injected is compared. As indicated in the literature
that hot water flooding is more noticeable from 0.1 to 4 pore volumes injected (Willman et al., 1961).
Discussion and Results
The results of this study are presented and discussed. The oil recovery as function of reservoir heterogeneity, oil
viscosities, and multilateral horizontal well length is illustrated.
Base Case
The reservoir under study as a base case is a homogenous reservoir initially saturated with 100% heavy oil (500cp) and then
flooded with hot water through a multilateral injection well. The reservoir pressure is 500 psi. Figure 1 illustrates the well
configuration used. It consists of multilateral horizontal well as injector and a vertical well as producer. The length of each
lateral is half of the reservoir side length. The average permeability is 130 md and porosity is 0.20. Figure 2 show a 2-D
average permeability map of the system. The performance of this pattern was investigated by recording the recovery of heavy
oil at different injection temperatures. Figure 3 compares the heavy oil recovery by unheated water flood and hot water. The
hot water flood recovered 27% after 3 pore volume injected (PVI) while the unheated water flood recovered 10% at 3 PVI.
The oil recovery by these two types of floods (unheated and hot water flood) was compared at different initial oil viscosities.
Figure 4 shows the performance of the two floods as a function of oil viscosities. Hot water flood outperforms the unheated
water flood. Figure 5 shows the oil recovery of three types of oil (10 cp, 100cp, and 500cp) as a function of PVI. As oil
viscosity increases, the mobility ratio increases leading to decrease in oil recovery. The thermal effect can be noticed at 1.4
PVI in the case of heavy oil (500 cp).
Heterogeneity Effect
Four permeability maps were generated geostatistically to describe the degree of reservoir heterogeneity. These maps were
generated using the Matrix Decomposition Method (MDM) with a spherical model of autocorrelation. The MDM is an
averaging type method. All the permeability fields are log-normally distributed in accordance with observations in
sedimentary rocks. The permeability fields are, therefore, completely described statistically with two measures of
heterogeneity: the Dykstra-Parsons (Dykstra et al., 1950) coefficient (DP) and the dimensionless correlation length. As the
random seed number changes, the selection of the generated field changes, thus creating different results or realization for the
permeability field, Alajmi et al. (2009). Two levels of DP and two levels of Lx make up the four permeability fields. Table 1

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represents a schematic layout of the simulated permeable media. Permeability fields were generated at DP of 0.05 and 0.80
and Lx of 0.0 and 0.5. DP of 0.80 represents a highly heterogeneous medium, while DP of 0.05 represents a nearly
homogeneous medium. A dimensionless correlation length of 0.5 represents a strong correlation. This represents the largest
correlation length investigated in this study. Petroleum reservoirs typically have Dykstra-Parsons coefficient that range from
0.6 to 0.8. Figure 6 shows four permeability maps representing the ranges of DP and Lx. Case 1 represents the homogenous
case (Base Case) and case 4 represents the most heterogeneous case studied here. Figure 7 presents the oil recovery as a
function of PVI at different oil viscosities. Cases with DP 0.8, the oil recovery is low compared with cases of DP 0.05 at all
ranges of oil viscosities. Figure 8 illustrates the water saturation maps during hot water flood to heavy oil. Case 4 shows the
least swept area due the high degree of heterogeneity. Using multilateral well as injectors could cause some oil entrapment as
shown in Figure 8.
Well Length
The dimensionless multilateral well was made dimensionless by dividing each lateral length (l) in a given direction by the total
reservoir length (L) in that direction. The "l/L" configurations were as the following: "l/L" equals 1.0 represents the full length
of each lateral length of the injection well with respect of the reservoir length in the same direction (1:1), "l/L" equals 0.5
represents each lateral well length being half of the reservoir length in the same direction (1:2); base case, and "l/L" equals 0.1
represents each lateral well length being 0.1 of the reservoir length in the same direction (1:10). Figure 9 shows the oil
recovery with respect to the multilateral well length for the four cases. The Figure shows as the well lateral increases, the oil
recovery decrease. The full length of well lateral caused early breakthrough which led to less oil recovery. This is because of
the reduction of the areal distance between the injector and producer. Figure 10 explains this observation. Figure 10a
illustaretes the heavy oil saturation map of full lateral length of injection well (l/L = 1.0) during hot water flood. Large
quantity of oil is being trapped in the center. Figure 10b shows the two fluid flow vectors; oil is "red" and water is "blue". The
trapped oil is represented by small red vectors indicating a slow oil flow. Figure 10c show the same flood to light oil where the
water breakthrough is delayed and more oil is produced. In the heterogeneous reservoir (case 4), the l/L equals 0.5 provided
the highest oil recovery for light oil. This can be explained by the fact that half way well lateral length overcame some of the
effect of the reservoir heterogeneity. For the same reservoir heterogeneity (case 4), the l/L equals 0.1 gave also low recovery
due to small well exposure to the reservoir which caused the water to flow through the higher permeability channel causing
low oil recovery. Figure 11 compares the light oil recovery between homogenous case (case1) and heterogeneous case (case4).
For light oil in heterogonous reservoir, a half length of multilateral wells (l/L=0.5) could improve the light oil recovery.
While in the heavy oil recovery as presented in Figure 12, the length of multilateral well in heterogeneous reservoirs provide
no improvement in the heavy oil recovery.

Conclusions
The objective of this study was to investigate the heavy oil recovery by Hot water flooding using multilateral well
configuration in heterogeneous reservoirs. Based on the results of the simulation runs, the conclusions of this study are as
follow:
1. The combination of high permeability variation (DP) and high correlation length (Lx), case 4, significantly reduces the
displacement performance of heavy oil by hot water flooding.
2. As multilateral injection well length (l/L) increases the oil recovery is decreases hot water flood.
3. Changing the lateral well length in multilateral injection well configuration in heterogeneous reservoirs provided no
recovery improvement for heavy oil.
4. In light oil case, the half length of each lateral of the injection well (l/L = 0.5) illustrated the highest recovery in the case
of heterogeneous reservoirs.

Acknowledgment
This study was supported by Kuwait University Research Administration, Grant no.EP03/05. The authors are grateful for this
support.
References
Alajmi, A. F., Algharaib, M., Gharbi, R., 2005. Heavy Oil Displacement by Thermal Recovery Using Different
Horizontal/Vertical Wells Configurations. SPE 106347. SPE Technical Symposium of Saudi Arabia Section, Dhahran,
Saudi Arabia.
Alajmi, A. F., Gharbi, R., Algharaib, M., 2009. Investigating the performance of hot water injection in geostatistically
generated permeable media, Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, accepted for publication, available on-line
March 9.
Algharaib, M. and Gharbi, R., 2005. A Comparative Analysis of Water flooding Projects Using Horizontal Wells. SPE
93743 Middle East Oil Show Conf., Manama, Bahrain.

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Al-Shatti, A., Algharaib M., Gharbi R., and Malallah A., 2006. Modeling the Performance of Thermal Recovery
Techniques on a Heavy Oil Deposit in the Middle East paper to be presented at the Second International Conference
on Thermal Engineering Theory and Applications, 3-6 January, Al-Ain, UAE
Bernd L., WinterShall A. G., 2001. Enhancing Stemflood Effectiveness by Horizontal Producers, Paper SPE 69707,
Presented at SPE International Thermal Operations and Heavy Oil Symposium held in Portamar Island, Venezuela, 1214 March.
Bousaid, I.S., 1991. Hot-Water and Steamflood Studies Using Kern River Oil. SPE 21543. International Thermal
Operations Symposium, Bakersfield, California.
Cassinat, J.C., Payette, M. C., Taylor, D. B. and Cimolai, M. P., 2002. Optimizing Waterflood Performance by Utilizing
Hot Water Injection in a High Paraffin Content Reservoir. SPE 75141. Improved Oil Recovery Symposium, Tulsa,
Oklahoma.
Chona R. A., Hazlett W, E., 1996. Evaluation of Horizontal Infill Well in a mature Cyclic Steam project Paper SPE
37087, presented at the International conference on Horizontal well Technology, held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. 1820 Nov..
Diaz-Munoz, J., Farouq Ali, S. M., 1975. Simulation of Cyclic Hot Water Stimulation of Heavy Oil Wells. SPE 5668.
Dykstra, H., Parsons, R.L., 1950. The Prediction of Oil Recovery by Water Flood, Secondary Recovery of Oil in the
United States, Principle and Practice. Am. Pet. Inst., 2nd ed.
Eclipse, (2005) Reservoir Simulator, Schlumberger Information System.
El-Abbas, A. Shedid, A., 2001. Experimental Investigation of the Feasibility of Steam/Chemical Steam flooding Processes
through Horizontal wells. SPE 68767. Oil and Gas Conference and exhibition, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Ellison T. K., Clayton C. A., 1995. Reservoir simulation improves Implementation of Midway sunset Steamflood. SPE
29641. Western Regional meeting, Bakersfield, CA, USA.
Energy Information Administration, Department of Energy, USA, URL: http://www.eia.doe.gov/
Farouq Ali, S. M., 2003. Heavy Oil Evermore Mobile. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering. 37, 5-9.
Farouq Ali, S. M., 1974. Heavy Oil Recovery - Principles, Practicality, Potential , and Problems. SPE 4935. Rocky
Mountain Regional Meeting, Billings, Montana, USA.
Fernandez D., Zepra L. B., Intevep S. A.; Numerical Simulation of Horizontal wells in Heavy crude oil Reservoir located
in Maracaibo Lake Venezuela , Paper SPE 37105, presented at the International conference on Horizontal well
Technology, held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. 18-20 Nov. 1996.
Escovedo B. M., 1995. Conceptual steam flood designs using Horizontal wells to maximize Project profitability, Paper
SPE 30279, presented at the International Heavy oil Symposium held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. 19-21 June.
Gharbi, R., Peters, E. J., Garrouch, A. A., 1997. Effect of Heterogeneity on the Performance of Immiscible Displacement
with Horizontal Wells. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering. 18, 35-47.
Goodyear, S. G., Reynolds, C. B., Townsley, P. H., Woods, C. L., 1996. Hot Water Flooding for High Permeability
Viscous Oil Fields. SPE 35373. Improved Oil Recovery Symposium, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Mahroos, F.A., 2005. Future Challenges for Producing Middle East Oilfields During Maturation Stage. SPE 93708. Middle
East Oil Show Conf., Manama, Bahrain.
Martin, W. L., Dew, J. N., Powers, M. L., Steves, H. B., 1968. Results of a Tertiary Hot Waterflood in a Thin Sand
Reservoir. Journal of Petroleum Technology. 739-750 (July)
Milhem, M.M., Ahmed, K.N., 1987. Performance of a Pilot Cyclic Steam Stimulation Project in Kuwait. SPE 15733.
Middle East Oil Show Conf., Manama, Bahrain.
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Solvent Flooding. Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology. 37:4, 3340.
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Heaters. SPE 68220. Middle East Oil Show Conf., Manama, Bahrain.
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19-21 June.

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Figure 1: Well pattern configration

Table 1: A schematic layout of simulated permeable media, md

Case 1
Base Case

Case 2

Case 3

Case 4

DP

0.05

0.8

0.05

0.8

Lx

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.5

Figure 2: Avrage perambility cross-section of base case

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0.8
Unheated
Hot

Oil Recovery

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0

PVI

Figure 3: Heavy oil recovery by unheated water and hot water floods

Unheated

0.8

Oil Recovery, fraction

Hot

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Oil Viscosity, cp

Figure 4: Compason between unheated water and hot water floods at different initial oil viscosity.

1
10 cp
100 cp
500 cp

Oil Recovery, fraction

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0

PVI

Figure 5: Oil recovery for different oil viscosities during hot water flood

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Case 1

Case 2

Case 3

Case 4

Figure 6: Four permeability maps

1
10 cp

Case 1

10 cp

Case 2

100 cp

100 cp

0.8

0.6

0.6

Oil Recovery

Oil Recovery, fraction

500 cp

0.8

0.4

0.2

500 cp

0.4

0.2

0
0

PVI

Case 3

10 cp

Case 4

100 cp
500 cp

0.8

10 cp
100 cp

0.8

0.6

Oil Recovery

Oil Recovery

2
PVI

0.4

0.2

500 cp

0.6

0.4

0.2

2
PVI

2
PVI

Figure 7: Oil recovery performance for the four cases

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Case 2

Case 3

Case 4

Sw

100%

Case 1

Figure 8: Water saturation maps during hot water flood to heavy oil

Case 1

Case 2

10 cp

10 cp

100 cp

0.8

100 cp

0.8

500 cp

Oil Recovery

Oil Recovery

500 cp

0.6

0.4

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.2

0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Case 3

Case 4

10 cp

10 cp

100 cp

0.8

100 cp

0.8

500 cp

500 cp

0.6

Oil Recovery

Oil Recovery

1.2

l /L

l /L

0.4

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.2

0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6
l /L

0.8

1.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

l /L

Figure 9: Oil recovery with respect to well lateral length

1.2

10

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Figure 10: A) Water saturation map during hot water flood to heavy oil using l/L equals 1.0.
B) Oil and hot water flow vectors, C) Water saturation map during hot water flood to light oil.

Oil Recovery

0.8

0.6

0.4
Homogenous
Heterogeneous

0.2

0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

l /L

Figure 11: Comparson of light oil recovery during hot water flood prefoemance in
homogenous and heterogeneous cases

Oil Recovery

0.8

0.6
Homogenous
Heterogeneous

0.4

0.2

0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

l /L

Figure 12: Comparson of heavy oil recovery during hot water flood prefoemance in
homogenous and heterogeneous cases