Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 172 (2019) 209–216

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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/petrol

Mechanistic simulation study of air injection assisted cyclic steam T

stimulation through horizontal wells for ultra heavy oil reservoirs
Yanyong Wang∗, Shaoran Ren, Liang Zhang
School of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, Shandong, 266580, People's Republic of China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Air injection assisted cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) through horizontal wells is a new technique for the ex-
Air injection process ploitation of ultra heavy oil reservoirs, which has an advantage over other gas or solvent injection processes from
Low temperature oxidation the economic point of view. Different from in-situ combustion (ISC) process, the dominating chemical reactions
Ultra heavy oil occurring underground in air injection assisted CSS process are low temperature oxidation (LTO) reactions, and
Steam injection
owing to the complicated LTO reaction mechanism, this process is still not clearly understood. Therefore, an
Horizontal well
indepth learning of this process will be of great benefit to its field application and specific project design. In this
study, a comprehensive numerical simulation model was established, which accounted for the LTO reactions of
different oil components in terms of SARA fractions, as well as permeability reduction induced by coke de-
position. A series of simulations were then performed to explore the production performance and elucidate the
impacts of various factors. The simulation results demonstrate that air injection assisted CSS using horizontal
wells can enhance ultra heavy oil recovery and reduce cSOR in comparison with steam injection alone, which
can be attributed to the synergistic effect of steam and air coinjection. Injection of air along with steam can have
the same effect as the initial solution gas in reservoir, and the potential of air injection assisted CSS to enhance
oil recovery will be more pronounced in oil layers with lean solution gas. In addition, normal air injection can be
a viable choice considering the free availability of air, and injection of oxygen-reduced air can become a good
option for ultra heavy oils featured with poor LTO reactivity for the sake of safe production.

1. Introduction
Heavy oil resources have the potential to serve as a bridging
strategy to alleviate energy crisis during the transition from conven-
tional hydrocarbon fuels to sustainable energy sources (Zhang et al.,
2017; Ado et al., 2018). At present, the exploitation of deep heavy oil
reservoirs is generally based on steam injection process, nevertheless
this method is effective but not very efficient, usually faced with huge
energy and water consumption for steam generation associated with
considerable greenhouse gas emissions (Gates and Larter, 2014; Wang
et al., 2018a, 2018b). In such context, coinjection of noncondensable
gas, including nitrogen, carbon dioxide, flue gas, etc., or solvent with
steam has been proposed in order to improve the field performance of
steam injection and some relevant pilot testing results were very en-
couraging (Gates, 2010; Li et al., 2011, 2017a, 2017b; Liu et al., 2015).
Air injection process (AIP), such as high pressure air injection (HPAI)
for light oil reservoirs and in-situ combustion (ISC) for heavy oil re-
servoirs, has been applied in different kinds of oil reservoirs over the
last few years (Ren et al., 2002, 2018). In consideration of the free
availability and unconstraint supply of air, steam and air coinjection
can prevail over other gas/solvent injection processes from an eco-
nomic point of view.
In the past several decades, cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) has been
extensively adopted for the exploitation of heavy oil resources, espe-
cially for ultra heavy oils, and it can be easily operated on-site in
comparison with other steam injection processes (e.g., steam flooding
and steam assisted gravity drainage). With the development of hor-
izontal well technology, CSS based on horizontal wells has been gra-
dually employed in oilfields, which has notable strengths over that by
conventional vertical wells, such as larger contact area with oil bearing
formation, larger steam injection capacity and greater fluid pro-
ductivity (He et al., 2018). However, the oil recovery factor of CSS
using horizontal wells for ultra heavy oils is still not very high, espe-
cially for oil reservoirs with thin layers. To further improve the pro-
duction performance of cyclic steam injection, air injection assisted CSS
through horizontal wells is proposed in this study.
Different from other steam and inert gas coinjection processes, a
series of consecutive or parallel oxidation reactions will take place

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wangyy@s.upc.edu.cn (Y. Wang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2018.09.060
Received 28 June 2018; Received in revised form 9 September 2018; Accepted 21 September 2018
Available online 22 September 2018
0920-4105/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Y. Wang et al. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 172 (2019) 209–216

between oil components and oxygen in the injected air during steam Table 1
and air coinjection process (Niu et al., 2011; Chen et al., 2013; Huang Basic properties adopted in the reservoir simulation model.
and Sheng, 2017). Since the formation temperature is generally lower Property Value
than 350 °C in steam stimulation condition and there is no artificial
ignition process, the prevailing oxidation reactions belong to low Reference depth 873
Porosity 0.30
temperature oxidation (LTO) reactions (Wang et al., 2017, 2018c;
Horizontal permeability (mD) 2000
Zhang et al., 2015b), which are distinguished from the high tempera- kv/kh 0.50
ture oxidation (HTO) reactions of ISC process (Yang and Gates, 2009). Oil saturation 0.65
A great number of products will be produced in these LTO reactions, Effective formation compressibility (1/kPa) 3.5 × 10−5
including partially oxygenated compounds, carbon oxides, coke and Reference pressure (kPa) 8500
Original reservoir temperature (°C) 33
water (Burger and Sahuquet, 1972; Khansari et al., 2014; Zhang et al.,
Rock volumetric heat capacity (kJ/m3 °C) 2450
2015a; Xu et al., 2016), and thus a more accurate description of the LTO Rock thermal conductivity (kJ/m day °C) 150
process relies on multiple pseudocomponents rather than single pseu- Water thermal conductivity (kJ/m day °C) 53.5
docomponent. In addition, the partially oxygenated compounds (e.g., Oil thermal conductivity (kJ/m day °C) 11.5
Gas thermal conductivity (kJ/m day °C) 3.2
alcohol, aldehyde, ketone, carboxylic acid and hydroperoxide) can be
Over/underburden rock volumetric heat capacity (kJ/m3 °C) 2350
more viscous than their original oil components, and the coke produced Over/underburden rock thermal conductivity (kJ/m day °C) 104.96
arising from LTO reactions cannot be consumed effectively and hence Temperature of injected steam (°C) 320
will reduce the reservoir permeability (Luhmann et al., 2017), all of Steam quality at sandface 0.75
which can cause some adverse effects on oil recovery performance. In
the past decades, a lot of reaction schemes have been proposed to
characterize the LTO reactions on the basis of laboratory experimental subsequent numerical simulation. The reservoir model has physical
results (Chen et al., 2013; Khansari et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2015a; dimensions of 50 m in width (x direction), 200 m in length (y direction),
Yang et al., 2017), and among these models, reactions based on SARA 3 m–20 m in height (z direction). The horizontal well is located 1.25 m
(i.e., saturates, aromatics, resins and asphaltenes) fractions can be more above the formation bottom. The reservoir model was discretized into a
appropriate to depict the LTO process of ultra heavy oils (Belgrave regular Cartesian grid system, with dimensions of 1 m in cross well
et al., 1993; Jia et al., 2006; Sequera et al., 2010), which enables the direction, 200 m in downwell direction, and 0.5 m in vertical direction.
investigation of air injection assisted CSS process by means of numer- The physical properties of the reservoir (e.g., porosity, horizontal per-
ical modeling. Furthermore, an indepth understanding of the produc- meability and oil/water saturations, etc.) were partly referred to the
tion process of air injection assisted CSS will be of great significance to core data taken from a representative ultra heavy oil reservoir in Liaohe
its further field-scale application as well as project design. Oilfield, Northeast China. The original reservoir pressure and tem-
In the present study, a comprehensive reservoir simulation model of perature are 8500 kPa and 33 °C, respectively. The basic properties for
air injection assisted CSS using horizontal wells was constructed, which the reservoir model have been summarized in Table 1. Single reservoir
was coupled with a complex LTO reaction scheme in terms of SARA rock type (i.e., sandstone reservoir) was adopted in the model, and the
fractions and considered the reduction of reservoir permeability owing overburden and underburden layers were assumed to be perfect seals
to coke deposition. Then, a series of numerical simulations were con- with respect to the movement of reservoir fluids, whereas heat loss to
ducted to explore the performance of air injection assisted CSS using the overburden and underburden formations was taken into account.
horizontal wells. In addition, the influences of different factors, in- The numerical simulations were conducted using CMG STARS software
cluding oil layer thickness, initial solution gas to oil ratio, operated air (STARS User's Guide, Computer Modeling Group Ltd., Canada, 2012).
to steam ratio, oxygen content, were analyzed on the basis of the nu-
merical simulation results. The results outlined in this study can deepen 2.2. Fluid model
the understanding of air injection assisted CSS by horizontal wells for
extracting oil from ultra heavy oil formations. In simulation model, the reservoir fluids were composed of solution
gas, water and ultra heavy oil. Four phases (i.e., aqueous, oleic, gas-
2. Numerical simulation study eous, and solid phases) and eleven components (i.e., water, saturates,
aromatics, resin1, resins, asphaltenes, carbon dioxide, methane, ni-
2.1. Reservoir simulation model trogen, oxygen, coke) were adopted in the fluid model. Water can exist
in either aqueous or gaseous phase, and the original ultra heavy oil was
A representative model for CSS process based on single horizontal characterized using four pseudocomponents (i.e., SARA fractions), and
well has been shown in Fig. 1, and only the right half part of this model each component existed mainly in oleic phase besides in gaseous phase,
was selected to build a 2D conceptual homogeneous reservoir model for while the oxygen was assumed to exist only in gaseous phase. The Peng-
Robinson equation of state (PR EoS) available in CMG WinProp was
applied to model the ultra heavy oil, and the basic pressure-volume-
temperature (PVT) data for individual pseudocomponent have been
given Table 2. The molecular weights and specific gravities of the SARA

Table 2
The PVT data for individual pseudocomponent (with molecular weights and
specific gravities referred to Peramanu et al., 1999).
Pseudocomponent Fraction Molecular Pc (kPa) Tc (°C) Specific
(mol%) weight (g/ gravity
mol)

Fig. 1. A representative model for cyclic steam stimulation using single hor- Saturates 27.35 381 928.12 591.19 0.885
izontal well with only half of the model (right zone in red) used for numerical Aromatics 19.71 408 1065.34 683.80 0.998
Resins 36.32 947 465.87 847.11 1.037
simulation owing to symmetry. (For interpretation of the references to colour in
Asphaltenes 16.62 2005 251.13 1123.26 1.203
this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)

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Y. Wang et al. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 172 (2019) 209–216

Fig. 2. Viscosity-temperature profile of the crude oil used in the simulation

model.

Table 3
Reaction kinetics for the adopted low temperature oxidation reactions (Sequera
et al., 2010).
Reactions Frequency Activation Reaction Reaction
factor, 1/day energy, kJ/mol order for PO2 enthalpy, kJ/
mol

1 7.2 × 104 40.213 0.283 19.72

2 1.44 × 1011 70 1.114 1500
3 1.44 × 1011 70 1.114 3600
4 1.44 × 1012 94.25 0.732 0

fractions are referred to the testing results of Peramanu et al. (1999),

and the critical properties (e.g., Pc and Tc) were calculated using the
Twu model (Twu, 1984). A series of single phase calculations and re-
gression steps were performed to match the physical properties (i.e.,
density and viscosities) of the dead oil measured at atmospheric con-
ditions and to eventually generate viscosity data for different pseudo-
components at different temperatures. Then, K-values were generated
for phase equilibrium calculations of reservoir fluids. The viscosities of
dead oil measured at surface condition are compared with those in the
simulation model, as shown in Fig. 2. To depict the LTO reactions, a
series of four reactions (Eq. (1) through (4)) in terms of SARA fractions
were slightly modified and adopted (Sequera et al., 2010), with re-
levant reaction kinetics given in Table 3. In this model, the aromatic
fraction can be oxidized to form an intermediate product, Resin1, which
falls into the category of resins and represents the oxidation of aro-
matics to hydroperoxides. This intermediate product will participate in
the oxidation of aromatic and resin fractions, producing asphaltenes,
carbon oxides and water. The asphaltenes can be further cracked into
coke, carbon dioxide and water (Sequera et al., 2010). It is a compre-
hensive model at present that can depict the conversion of aromatics
and resins to asphaltenes, and the coke formation process.
Fig. 3. Relative permeability curves adopted in the simulation model.
constant, and T is absolute temperature. ϕf is fluid porosity, cj is the
concentration factor of the jth reactant.
The relative permeability curves adopted in the simulation model
are shown in Fig. 3, and the capillary force was not considered in si-
mulation due to the high permeability of the reservoir as well as the low
oil-water interfacial tension in steam injection conditions.
The coke (solid phase) generated in LTO reactions generally de-
posits on the surface of pore structure, which will reduce the fluid
porosity and thus have an adverse impact on the formation perme-
ability. In the simulation model, the variation of formation permeability
with fluid porosity was modelled via the Carman-Kozeny type formula
(Cui et al., 2017),
n 2
ϕ 1 − ϕ0 ⎞
k (ϕ) = k 0 ⎛⎜ ⎞⎟ ⎜⎛ ⎟

⎝ ⎠ 1−ϕ⎠
ϕ0 ⎝ (6)
Aromatics+0.26O2→0.1Resin1+0.85Aromatics (1)
where k0 and k are initial and current formation permeability, respec-
Aromatics+0.1Resin1+10.26O2→0.3Asphaltenes+3.1CO2+3.78H2O
tively; ϕ0 and ϕ are initial and real time fluid porosity, respectively; n is
(2)
an index, the value of which can vary from 0 to 10. In the simulation
Resins+0.1Resin1+25.01O2→0.67Asphaltenes+7.17CO2+8.77H2O model, the value of index n is set to 4.
(3)
2.3. Simulation schemes
Asphaltenes+10−6O2→0.78Saturates+116.14Coke+4.52CO2 (4)

For each chemical reaction, the reaction rate was calculated by the
following equation,
Ei
ri = Ai e− RT ϕf Πcj.
where, for chemical reaction i, ri is the reaction rate, and Ai and Ei are
frequency factor and activation energy, respectively. R is universal gas
Table 4 shows the detailed parameter settings for different simula-
tion schemes. For air injection assisted CSS process, injection of air
occurred after 3 cycles of conventional CSS operation to preheat the oil
(5) layers, and air and steam are injected simultaneously during the AACSS
cycle. An integrated operation cycle for all cases was last for 4 months
with 10 days of injection and 7 days of soaking. All the cases were run
for 23 cycles of production.

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Table 4
Parameter settings for different simulation schemes.
Case No. Oil layer Solution gas to oil Air to steam Oxygen
thickness, m ratio, m3/m3 ratio, m3/m3 content, vol%

1 3 0 0 –
2 3 0 100 5
3 3 0 100 10
4 3 0 100 15
5 3 0 100 21
6 3 0 100 30
7 3 0 200 21
8 3 0 300 21
9 3 2 100 21
10 3 6 100 21
11 10 0 0 –
12 10 0 100 21
13 20 0 0 –
14 20 0 100 21

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Production performance and EOR mechanism analyses

The simulation results of air injection assisted CSS through hor-

izontal well for a 20 m thick reservoir, including oil recovery factor (RF)
and cumulative steam to oil ratio (cSOR), are shown in Fig. 4. It can be
seen that oil recovery factor for steam and air coinjection process after
23 cycles of operation reaches 10.57 OOIP%, which is 1.97 OOIP%
higher than that of steam injection process. In addition, the cSOR after
23 cycles of operation is 5.65 m3/m3, which has been effectively re-
duced in comparison with that of steam injection alone (6.94 m3/m3).
To compare the production characteristics between air injection as-
sisted CSS and steam injection alone, their cumulative oil production in
terms of SARA fractions are illustrated in Fig. 4c. Compared with steam
injection alone, the cumulative production of saturates, aromatics, re-
sins and asphaltenes for steam and air coinjection process are improved
by 104.49%, 8.51%, 12.23% and 4.37%, respectively. Since the satu-
rate fraction in ultra heavy oil is featured with a relatively lower
viscosity compared with other components, it will be much easier to be
extracted. The cracking of asphaltene fraction in LTO reactions can also
produce a fraction of saturates, which can also contribute to the in-
creased yield of saturates.
Fig. 5 compares the temperature profiles of air injection assisted CSS
and steam injection alone before oil production in the 23rd cycle. For
steam and air coinjection process, coke produced in the LTO reactions
deposits in the near well region, and the noncondensable gases tend to
migrate upwards due to buoyancy effect and then accumulate in the
upper part of oil layer, which further hinders the expansion of steam
chamber in vertical direction. As a result, the steam chamber for steam
and air coinjection resembles an inverted triangle, whereas the steam
chamber for steam injection alone adopts an egg-like shape. In addition,
Fig. 4. Performance of air injection assisted CSS and steam injection alone.
the temperature in steam chamber for steam and air coinjection process
is higher than that of steam injection alone, which will be beneficial to
the reduction of oil viscosity. of the oil layer (see Fig. 7a), which is of great benefit to drive more
With the increase of operation cycles in cyclic steam injection, reservoir fluids (i.e., mixture of heavy oil and water) to the wellbore
pressure around the wellbore will drop gradually to a low level (see during production phase.
Fig. 6a), and in such condition, heavy oil cannot flow to the production The distributions of coke amount, fluid porosity and permeability at
well effectively without enough driving energy. In steam and air coin- different time have been shown in Fig. 8. It can be seen that the amount
jection process, reservoir pressure can be improved effectively with of coke formed in near well region increases significantly with the in-
extra noncondensable gas injection (see Fig. 6b), and a part of carbon creasing operation cycle, as a result of which, the fluid porosity and
dioxide produced due to LTO reactions as well as a small quantity of formation permeability are both reduced to a low level. The oil re-
injected nitrogen can dissolve into the oleic phase, which can not only covery factor after 23 cycles of production considering permeability
make the oil swelling but reduce oil viscosity to some extent. More reduction induced by coke deposition is 24.29 OOIP%, which is lower
importantly, the steam injected is mainly distributed in near wellbore than that without consideration of permeability reduction (25.97 OOIP
region, while flue gas (i.e., mixture of injected nitrogen and carbon %). The results indicate that coke formation in air injection assisted CSS
dioxide generated by LTO reactions) can penetrate into the deep region process will cause an adverse effect on oil recovery performance.

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Y. Wang et al.
Fig. 5. Temperature (°C) profiles in CSS process with and without air injection before oil production in the 23rd cycle.
3.2. Effect of oil layer thickness
To explore the effect of oil layer thickness on the production per-
formance, a series of three cases have been simulated, with corre-
sponding results shown in Fig. 9. For steam injection alone, the re-
spective cumulative oil production for oil layer thickness of 3 m, 5m
and 20 m are 804.14 m3, 2464.93 m3 and 3340.59 m3, which have been
improved by 75.39%, 26.14% and 22.82%, respectively, after addi-
tional air injection. As shown in Fig. 9, the performance of cyclic steam
injection is enhanced with the increasing oil layer thickness, and cyclic
steam injection in thin oil layers (e.g., 3 m) is featured with a higher
cSOR, which can be ascribed to the relatively poor reservoir heat effi-
ciency of steam since there is usually more heat loss to the overburden
or underburden formations (He et al., 2017). In addition, coinjection of
air with steam can effectively reduce the cSOR, especially for thin oil
layers, which can make the exploitation of this kind of oil layers eco-
nomically feasible.
3.3. Effect of initial solution gas to oil ratio
For ultra heavy oil reservoirs in different geographical locations, the
heavy crudes may be saturated with lean or rich gas in original re-
servoir conditions. To study the effect of initial solution gas to oil ratio
on the production performance of air injection assisted CSS, simulation
schemes with different solution gas (in terms of methane) to oil ratios
(i.e., 0 m3/m3, 2 m3/m3, 6 m3/m3) were conducted, and corresponding
results are shown in Fig. 10. We can see from Fig. 10 that, for steam
injection alone, the oil recovery factor will be improved and the cSOR
will be reduced with the increase of initial solution gas to oil ratio. That
is, the solution gas presented in oil reservoir can be advantageous to oil
production, and these beneficial effects are attributed to reduction of oil
viscosity and gas drive effect as a result of solution gas exsolution in
production phase. As for air injection assisted CSS, there are not sig-
nificant differences in oil recovery factor and cSOR among different
solution gas to oil ratios after 23 cycles of operation. These results in-
dicate that coinjection of air with steam can have the same effect as the
initial solution gas presented in reservoir, and thus the potential of air
Fig. 6. Pressure (kPa) distributions in CSS process with and without air injection before oil production in the 23rd cycle.
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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 172 (2019) 209–216
injection assisted CSS to enhance heavy oil recovery will be more
pronounced in oil layers with lean solution gas in comparison with
those with rich solution gas.
3.4. Effect of air to steam ratio
Air to steam ratio is a key parameter in the field operation of air
injection assisted CSS. The investigate the effect of air to steam ratio on
the production performance, three different operation schemes (with
air steam ratio of 100 m3/m3, 200 m3/m3, 300 m3/m3, respectively)
were explored, and the results have been presented in Fig. 11. It can be
observed that the oil recovery factor is improved from 24.29 OOIP% to
30.07 OOIP% with the increase of air to steam ratio from 100 m3/m3 to
300 m3/m3, and cSOR drops from 16.45 m3/m3 to 13.29 m3/m3 in the
meanwhile. In field operation, an unreasonable high air to steam ratio
usually implies a high operation cost of gas injection, and may lead to
an incomplete oxygen utilization that will adversely affect the opera-
tion safety. Therefore, a feasible air to steam ratio for field operation
should be determined in consideration of a number of factors, including
the economics of the project, air injectivity, the capacity of gas pro-
cessing facility and formation fracture pressure etc.
3.5. Effect of oxygen content
The distinction between AIP and other noncondensable gas injection
processes lies in the LTO reactions involved, and hence oxygen content
in the injected air can play an important role in AIP. To study the effect
of oxygen content on the production performance of air injection as-
sisted CSS process, a series of six scenarios with different oxygen con-
tents were simulated, and the results have been demonstrated in
Fig. 12. The oil recovery factors for oxygen contents of 0, 5%, 10%,
15%, 21% and 30% after 23 cycles of operation are 23.9%, 23.34%,
23.12%, 23.69%, 24.29% and 24.79% in terms of OOIP, respectively.
For thin oil layers (with thickness of 3 m), the performance of oxygen-
reduced air injection (e.g., 5%, 10%, 15%) was slightly inferior to those
of nitrogen, normal air and oxygen-enriched air injection. Therefore,
normal air injection can be a viable choice in consideration of the free
Y. Wang et al. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 172 (2019) 209–216

Fig. 7. Gas saturation profiles in CSS process with and without air injection before oil production in the 23rd cycle.

availability of air resource. However, for ultra heavy oils featured with
poor LTO reactivity, the oxygen content may not be consumed to a safe
level (ca. 5 vol%) in the soaking phase, and the presence of oxygen with
oil vapors in producers may give rise to an explosion. In such condition,
oxygen-reduced air injection assisted CSS is proposed in this study, in
which the oxygen content is reduced to a relative level (e.g., 10 vol%)
before gas injection, and thus in oil production phase, the oxygen
content in production well can be controlled in a safe level.

Fig. 8. Coke amount (kg/m3, left), fluid porosity (middle) and permeability (mD, right) vs. time in air injection assisted CSS process.

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Y. Wang et al.
Fig. 9. Effect of oil layer thickness on the production performance of air in-
jection assisted CSS by horizontal well.
Fig. 10. Production performance of air injection assisted CSS through hor-
izontal well with different initial solution gas to oil ratios.
4. Conclusions
This study investigates, by means of numerical modeling, the pro-
duction performance of air injection assisted CSS through horizontal
wells for ultra heavy oils, as well as the impacts of different influencing
factors. The conclusions drawn from this study are summarized as fol-
lows,
(1) Air injection assisted CSS using horizontal wells can enhance ultra
heavy oil recovery, and reduce cSOR in comparison with steam
injection alone. The EOR mechanisms can be attributed to the sy-
nergistic effect of steam and air coinjection, including
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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 172 (2019) 209–216
Fig. 11. Production performance of air injection assisted CSS using horizontal
well with different air to steam ratios.
Fig. 12. Effect of oxygen content on the production performance of air injection
assisted CSS using horizontal well.
pressurization effect, flue gas driving and etc.
(2) Coinjection of air with steam may be better suited to ultra heavy oil
reservoirs featured with thin oil layers, which can make the ex-
ploitation of this kind of oil layers economically feasible.
(3) Coinjection of air with steam can have the same effect as the initial
solution gas presented in oil reservoir, and the potential of air in-
jection assisted CSS to enhance heavy oil recovery will be more
pronounced in oil layers with lean gas in comparison with those
with rich gas.
(4) Normal air injection can be a viable choice considering the free
availability of air resource, while injection of oxygen-reduced air
can become a good option for ultra heavy oil reservoirs with poor
LTO reactivity for the sake of safe production.
Acknowledgements
This research is partly supported by the National Major S&T Project
(2016ZX05056004-003).
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