JOURNAL

OF

Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 15 (1996) 281-290

Practical considerations in developing numerical simulators for

thermal recovery
J.H. Abou-Kassem
Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department, UAE University, P.O. Box 17555, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates

Received 17 March 1995; accepted 15 June 1995

Abstract

Numerical simulation of steam injection and in-situ combustion-based oil recovery processes is of great importance in
project design. Development of such numerical simulators is an on-going process, with improvements made as the process
description becomes more complete, and also as better methods are devised to resolve certain numerical difficulties. This
paper addresses some of the latter, and based on the author’s experience gives useful guidelines for developing more
efficient numerical simulators of steam injection and in-situ combustion. The paper takes up a series of questions related to
simulating thermal processes. Included are: the elimination of constraint equations at the matrix level, phase change, steam
injection rate, alternative treatments of heat loss, relative permeabilities and importance of hysteresis effects, improved
solutions to the grid orientation problem and other simulation problems such as potential inversion, grid block size, time-step
size control and induced fractures.
The points discussed in the paper should be of use to both simulator developers and users alike, and will lead to a better
understanding of simulation results.

1. Introduction The results obtained for the Fourth SPE Compara-

tive Solution Problem (Aziz et al., 1987) by six
Numerical simulation of thermal recovery meth- participants varied by as much as 15%, even though
ods-steam injection and in-situ combustion-is still the problem and the input data were tightly defined.
not a standardized procedure. Choices must be made These variations were in part owing to the differ-
at various stages in the implementation of a given ences in the numerical treatment used.
solution scheme. This paper considers several related
topics and offers suggestions based on the author’s
experience with thermal simulators. A previous pa- 2. Constraint equations
per (Abou-Kassem et al., 1986) gave a detailed
discussion of the various steam injection models A constraint equation in the present context is one
proposed, and provided a comparative view of the that does not involve any convection or conduction
treatment of nonlinearities and the solution schemes. terms. Thus, it is a function only of the unknowns of
These items will not be discussed here. Another the grid block, for which it is written, independent of
paper that gives useful “tips” for fully implicit the unknowns of neighboring grid blocks. Examples
simulation is the work of Au et al. (1980). of constraint equations are:

0920-4105/96/$15.00 Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

PIZ SO920-4105(96)000 12-5
1. Phase saturation constraint: The sum of saturation Consider a one-dimensional reservoir having three
of all phases in a grid block add up to one. This grid blocks (i.e., I= 1, 2, 3). The process being
constraint is encountered in all multiphase simula- modeled is steam injection. Each grid block 1 con-
tors. tributes ?I, constraints (e.g., n, = 3: cx, = 1. cy,
2. Phase composition constraints: The sum of mole
fractions of all components in a phase adds up to = 1 and S, + S,, + S, = 1) and n2 40, equations
one. These constraints are usually encountered in (e.g., n2 = 4: material balance equations for hydro-
compositional simulators. carbon components 1 and 2, material balance equa-
3. Thermodynamic equilibrium equations: These tion for the water component and energy balance
equations and phase composition constraints rep- equation). Let the unknowns of each grid block be
resent flash calculations in compositional simula- ordered as elements of subvector X,, (e.g., .Y,, x1
tors using equations of state. One form of these and S,) and subvector X,, (e.g., S,>, S,., T and p).
constraints is that fugacity of any component in All constraints and flow equations are written in
the system is the same in all phases. residual form and linearized using Newton’s itera-
The constraint equations and flow equations are tion. For each grid block the constraints are written
solved simultaneously in a fully implicit simulator first, followed by the flow equations. The resulting
using Newton’s iteration. However, the constraint linearized equations for the whole reservoir are pre-
equations can be eliminated at the matrix level with- sented in Fig. 1. Submatrices A, ,, and B, (, are
out influencing the results or the stability of the fully obtained by taking the derivatives of the constraints
implicit scheme. for block 1 with respect to the elements of Xc, and
This procedure was briefly referred to by Coats X,,, respectively. The derivatives of these constraints
(1980) implemented by Abou-Kassem and Aziz with respect to the unknowns of all blocks neighbor-
(1985) and was described by Naghiem and Rozon ing blocks 1 form zero submatrices of the sizes
(1989). Here the author presents the mechanics of 11, X n, and 11, X ~1~. The derivatives of the flow
the implementation of this powerful procedure that equationsf‘or block 1 with respect to the elements of
results in considerable reduction in both the CPU X,, and X,, form submatrices C,,, and D,,,. respec-
and memory storage requirements. tively. The derivatives of the flow equations for

n. Il_ Il. tl, Il. I-l”

"1

“2

xxx xxxxooooooo
"1 Q Q xxx xxxxooooooo
xxx xxxx 0000000
x x x xxxx xxx x x x x
xxx *xxx xxx x x x x
“2 c 2.1 !J 2.1 xxx *xxx xxx x xxx
xxx x xxx xxx x xxx

"1 Q Q Aa., EL,,

“2

Fig. 1. Coupled constraint and flow equations for one-dimensional reservoir consisting of three block\.
 J.H. Abou-Kassem/ Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 15 (1996) 281-290
biock 1 with respect to the elements of x’,,_, and
X,!_, (for the neighboring block I - 1) form C,,, and
D,,,, respectively; whereas those taken with respect
to the unknowns of the other neighboring block
1 + 1 form the corresponding C,,, and D,,,.
The steps involved in the elimination of the con-
straint equations at the matrix level are described
below.
Step I. Submatrix A,,, is transformed into an
identity matrix Z by performing row operations.
These row operations are at the sam_e time performed
on submatrix B,, and subvector R,,. This step re-
sults in I, B;,. and R’,, shown in Fig. 2. This step is
performed for every grid block I= 1, 2, 3.
Step 2. Each diagonal element of the resulting
identity matrix Z in Step 1 is used to zero the
elements of the column under it of the n2 X n,
submatrix C, ,, (in Fig. 1) by row operations in a
procedure similar to that in Gaussian elimination.
These row operations need to be performedonly on
the n2 X n2 submatrix D,, and subvector R,, on the
right-hand side. This step is performed for every grid
block 1 = 1, 2, 3. This step results in the n2 X n,
zero submatrices and _O;,a shown in Fig. 2 and
intermediate values of RrI (say Z?;).
Step 3. Each diagonal element of the identity
matrix Z resulting in Step 1 is used to zero the
elements in that column, using row operations, of all
submatrices that are contributions of grid block 1 to
.“1 n2
"1
"2
"1
"2
"1
"2
Fig. 2. Decoupled constraint and flow equations for one-dimensional
283
the flow equations of other grid blocks for which
block 1 appears as a neighboring block. For example,
for I= 2, these submatrices are C,,, and C,,,. The
row operations in this step are performed on the
corresponding submatrices D and subvectors of the
right-hand side (for I = 2, these submatrices are D,,,
and D,3,, and the subvectors are the intermediate
values of subvectors R,, and Z?rl resulting from row
operations in both Step 2 and Step 3). This step is
executed for every grid block I= 1, 2, 3 in that
order. Once this is done, the constraints are decou-
pled from the flow equations. The decoupled system
of equations are shown in Fig. 2.
Step 4. The 3n, decoupled flow equations (in this
example) are solved simul$neo_usly for+the reduced
subvectors of unknowns, X,,, XI, and XI,.
Step 5. The unknowns of subvector Xc1 are solved
explicitly by back substitution using:
?c,=l?c,-B;,o?r,; 1= 1,2,3 (1)
3. Phase change
Under certain conditions, the gas, water or oil
phase may disappear or reappear from regions of a
reservoir undergoing steam injection or in-situ com-
bustion. Three examples are given for conditions
“1 "2
reservoir consisting of three blocks.
284 J.H. Abou-Kassem/ Jourtml oj’Petr&um Science und Etqqinrering 15 (1996i281-290

under which phase change takes place: (i) the gas straint Cy, = 1 is not an appropriate equation for
phase does not exist in undersaturated reservoir, and
the block because the gas phase does not exist.
it may disappear in a saturated reservoir undergoing
Case d: Sp) = 0 and S:“’ > 0 imply that the oil
repressurization, forcing steam to condense and the
hydrocarbon gas to dissolve in the oil phase; (ii) a phase does not exist and hence physical equilibrium
is not attained in the grid block. The mole fractions
large pressure drop in the injection block may cause
of components in the gas phase will be the un-
the water phase to disappear (water evaporation),
knowns that will substitute for mole fractions in the
leading to the formation of a superheated steam and
oil phase in the formulation. In this case, the con-
the vaporization of hydrocarbon gas from the oil
phase; and (iii) the oil phase may disappear from a straint equations xxi = 1 must be replaced by the
grid block because of thermal cracking in in-situ equation S, + SE L 1 (or S,, = 0). In addition, the
combustion. Therefore, proper handling of phase
gas phase composition constraint cy, = 1, is still
change in a thermal simulator is important. Two of
the methods for handling phase change are the Vari- valid in the new formulation, and v,’ is an unknown
able Substitution Method and the Pseudo-equilibrium (L’, z K,s,).
Ratio Method.
3.2. Pseudo-equilibrium rutio method
3.1. Variable substitution method
This method was introduced by Crookston et al.
This method has been discussed by Coats (1978, (1979) and further elaborated on by Abou-Kassem
1980) and Abou-Kassem (198 1). In this method, the and Aziz (1985). In this method, the disappearance
disappearance and reappearance of either the oil, and reappearance of either the oil, water or gas phase
water or gas can be handled rigorously. The main can be handled without resorting to the variable
idea is to identify the condition in a given grid block, substitution logic in the numerical solution procedure
and then determine the unknowns and the appropri- of a thermal recovery process through the use of
ate constraint equations to be used in the grid block pseudo-equilibrium ratios. These ratios are expressed
during Newton’s iteration. Any grid block in a reser- as:
voir undergoing thermal recovery will exhibit one of
!?,X,,X,; i= 1,2, . . ..Iz.
the following cases: K, = (2)
Cuse a: Sp) > 0 and SC) > 0 imply that liquid k,X,.X,; i=n,+ 1
water is in equilibrium with steam in the gas phase;
and, therefore, temperature is not an unknown since where:
it is a function of pressure.
Case b: Sp) = 0 and Sr’ > 0 imply that the water (3)
phase does not exist and the block has superheated
steam. In this case, the block temperature, which is
(4)
independent of pressure, is the unknown that will
substitute for water saturation in the formulation. s,+ 4
One must use the equation S,, + S, = 1 (or S, = 0) x, = s, + 1o-1”
as one of the constraint equations for the block.
Case c: $“) = 0 and SC) > 0 imply that the gas and E,, E, and ~~ are small numbers of the order of
phase and hence steam does not exist in the block IO-‘. The functions X,, X, and X, are nearly 1.O,
and the temperature, which is independent of pres- except when S,,, S, or S, becomes smaller than
sure, is the unknown that will substitute for gas 10p3, i.e., near phase disappearance. If Xg is set to
saturation in the formulation. Also, one must use the 1, then the above pseudo-equilibrium ratios reduce to
equation S,, + S, = 1 (or S, = 0) as a constraint those introduced by Crookston et al. (I 979). The use
equation for the block instead of c y, = 1; the con- of Eqs. (2)-(5) forces the system to act as if there
I were small amounts of non-volatile oil, non-volatile
 J.H. Abou-Kassem/Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 15 (1996) 281-290 285

water and non-condensable gas. In effect, any phase condensation in well blocks on injectivity is pre-
is allowed to approach disappearance without achiev- sented. The rate of steam injection as predicted by
ing it. this scheme is always the maximum rate possible
The minute amount of non-condensable gas in the under the prevailing conditions in the well blocks,
pseudo-equilibrium ratio method affects the flow and it increases until the maximum steam injection
behavior of the gas phase, especially if gas hysteresis mass rate set by the user (I,) is reached. For simplic-
is not simulated. This deficiency is removed by ity, the case of a single-block well is treated here.
setting the relative permeability of the gas phase to Extension to multi-block wells is straightforward.
zero, when S, < Sgt. The value of Sa: can be found The mass rate of steam injection is affected by the
by accepting 1% deviation in Xg from 1, i.e., Sg: = prevailing conditions in the well block in the follow-
100~,, as shown by Sato (1987). ing manner. In the early stages of injection, steam
The success of the pseudo-equilibrium ratio condenses and the block pressure ( p,) as well as the
method depends on (i) an appropriate initialization of bottomhole flowing pressure (p,,) begin to build up
saturations that is consistent with the pseudo-equi- because in-situ fluids may have low mobility ini-
librium ratio equations, (ii) a fully implicit treatment tially. As steam continues to be injected at the
of the pseudo-equilibrium ratios, and (iii> an appro- specified rate Z,, the bottomhole pressure continues
priate reassignment of negative saturations encoun- to build up until it reaches a maximum value related
tered during iterations. The following equation is to the pressure of the generated wet steam (P,,~,~~).
recommended: Beyond this point in time the injected steam will
SC”’= y“E. only serve to replace voidage in the well block, the
P p p’ p=o,w,g (6) rate of which may be smaller than !,. As total
All saturations are checked at every iteration u. mobility improves, the steam injection rate starts to
Any negative saturation is assigned a positive value increase until it reaches Z, again, after which time
calculated from the above equation. This assigned the pwf needed to inject Z, drops below pwf,,,,
saturation value is used in the following iteration. because of continued improvement in the total mo-
bility.
3.3. Other methods To model the behavior of steam injection rate as
described above, the mass injection rate is viewed as
These methods have limited use, and they aim at a function controlled by two independent variables:
handling the gas phase change only through intro- steam availability (I,> and maximum well injectivity.
ducing a “penalty source” term in the inert gas Since these two variables are not related, this func-
equation (Forsyth et al., 1981), or generating a small tion is always determined by the limiting variable.
amount of an inert gas in the system through low The mass of injected steam according to steam
temperature cracking reaction (Grabowski et al., availability (option 1) is:
1979).
I, =Z, (7)
The pseudo-equilibrium ratio method has been the
most widely used technique to handle the phase whereas that according to well injectivity (option 2)
change in compositional simulators because it al- is:
ways uses one set of constraint equations, and its
implementation is straightforward compared with that Z2 = i p,,, (8)
for the variable substitution method which requires
where pmix is the density of wet steam at well block
complicated logic.
conditions, i.e., after the injected wet steam is con-
densed or flashed, and i is the volumetric injection
rate at the well block conditions. Therefore:
4. Steam injection rate

In this section, an implicit injection scheme that

takes into account the effect of steam flashing and

(“1
where X, is total mobility, G, is well geometric
factor, p, and p, are the density of water and steam
at well block reservoir conditions. S, is the portion
of the total gas saturation S, that is steam, given by:
(12)
In practice, option 1 is usually chosen. The injec-
tion scheme allows this option to be followed as long
as:
‘2 = p,,,,G,h,( P,, -P,,) 2 1, (13)
or so long as:
(‘4)
For light and intermediate crude oil reservoirs, op-
tion 1 can be operational throughout the life of the
steam injection project. Option 2 can be chosen from
the start, but it is automatically invoked when:
(‘5)
For heavy crude oil reservoirs, option 2 continues
to be operational until adequate steam mobility is
attained in the injection block. This scheme has to be
implemented in a fully implicit fashion. For a
single-block well, if pwf in Eq. (9) and Eq. (13) is
treated explicitly at the old time level, the stability of
the scheme will not be seriously affected (Abou-Kas-
sem, 1981). The time levels have been omitted in the
above equations, and could be the old or the new
times, depending on the solution scheme used.
5. Heat loss
The energy lost to surrounding formations influ-
ences the efficiency of a thermal recovery process.
Heat loss across the base and cap rocks is significant
because of the large area1 extent of reservoirs, through
which heat loss takes place, whereas heat loss across
the reservoir lateral boundaries is usually and justifi-
ably ignored because of the limited vertical exten-
sion of the reservoirs. Such heat loss must be consid-
ered, however, if a simulator is used to simulate a
laboratory experiment.
In modeling heat loss in thermal simulation. it is
assumed that (i) the medium is impermeable and
hence heat conduction is the only active energy flow
mechanism in the adjacent formations, (ii) the lateral
heat conduction in the adjacent formations has negli-
gible effect on temperature, and (iii) thermal rock
properties are independent of pressure and tempera-
ture. These are the justifications for modeling heat
loss as a source term in the finite difference equa-
tion, and for using a linear heat conduction equation
in the vertical direction to describe the temperature
distribution in the adjacent formations.
There are four different methods for estimating
heat loss. These are: the numerical method (Coats et
al., 1974); the semi-analytical method (Vinsome and
Westerveld, 1980), the analytical method (Abou-
Kassem, 1981) and the analytical solution with nu-
merical approximation to the convolution integral
(Souza et al., 1987) and others. The author’s experi-
ence (Hansamuit et al., 1992) with these methods
leads us to conclude that the numerical method is
sensitive to grid size in the overburden. the semi-ana-
lytical method is the simplest to program yet its
prediction is the least accurate, the analytical method
is the most expensive (in CPU time and storage
requirements), whereas the analytical-numerical
method (Souza et al., 1987) combines both accuracy
and acceptable storage requirements, and therefore it
is recommended. It should be mentioned that the
temperature of a boundary block, which appears in
the heat loss term, has to be treated implicitly to
avoid time step instability.
6. Relative permeabilities
Three-phase relative permeabilities are the
Achilles’ heel of reservoir simulation. This is more
so for thermal simulation. Relative permeabilities
measured in the laboratory are questionable in the
light of the instability theory. Frequently, relative
permeabilities become a history match parameter.
The laboratory values of end points are still of value.
In thermal simulation, the temperature dependence of
relative permeability should be taken into account.
The same can be said of hysteresis. Often, two-phase
 J.H. Abou-Kassem / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 15 (1996) 281-290
relative permeability data (oil-water and oil-gas)
are used in some variation of Stone’s model (Di-
etrich and Bondor, 1976; Aziz and Settari, 1979) to
obtain three-phase relative permeabilities. Myhill
(1980) has referred to the problem of obtaining low
oil saturations behind the steam front using Stone’s
model. Once the end points are obtained, it is easy to
use the Naar-Wygal-Henderson equations (Naar et
al., 1961). Kasraie (1987) gives a modified version
of these equations, suggesting that one way of in-
cluding temperature dependence is to make the end
points in the equations temperature dependent. Rela-
tive permeability hysteresis should be included in
simulation of cyclic steam stimulation. This can be
done in several ways; a simple approach was dis-
cussed by Bang (1984). Sato (1987) has discussed
the role of relative permeabilities on thermal simula-
tion.
7. Grid orientation
Under certain situations, vastly different results
are obtained for a steam flood, depending on whether
the grid lines are parallel or diagonal to the line
joining an injector-producer pair. The steam break-
through time in the latter case may be three times
that in the former. This effect may even be more
severe in in-situ combustion simulation. Grid orienta-
tion was first noticed in the displacement of oil by
water at an unfavorable mobility ratio. Details of the
grid orientation problem can be seen in the works of
Todd et al. (1972) and Aziz and Settari (1979). In
steamflood simulation, both mobility weighting and
discretization scheme affect grid orientation
(Vinsome and Au, 1981; Potempa, 1985). Therefore
both accurate numerical procedure and correct mo-
bility weighting are needed to alleviate grid orienta-
tion (Potempa, 1985). Abou-Kassem and Aziz (1982)
have discussed three approaches for solving the grid
orientation problem: (i) use of a nine-point, as op-
posed to five-point difference operator (for two di-
mensions); (ii) use of a two-point upstream mobility
instead of single point; and (iii) use of harmonic total
mobility average for calculation of flow across a
boundary. Frauenthal et al. (1985) have proposed a
generalized one-point upstream mobility weighting
scheme which reduces grid orientation significantly.
287
Their scheme introduces mobility values from nearby
points that lie in the true upstream direction rather
than a single grid line as is the case in ordinary
one-point upstream weighting. Though the method is
extendible to multi dimensions, it has a few short-
comings. It is only first order correct, it does not
easily extend to fully implicit simulators, and its
behavior with phase change is not known. The au-
thor’s experience shows that the nine-point scheme,
in two dimensions, alleviates the problem of grid
orientation. This is usually extended to an eleven-
point formulation in three dimensions (a more rigor-
ous treatment calls for a 27-point scheme). Abou-
Kassem (1981) has given a generalized extension of
Yanosik and McCracken’s nine-point scheme
(Yanosik and McCracken, 1979), and has shown that
for the cases investigated, the results for the parallel
and diagonal grids were close. Coats and Modine
(1983) have given generalized equations for calculat-
ing nine-point transmissibilities for heterogeneous
reservoirs. Ostebo and Kazemi (1991) have proposed
a split difference operator scheme for IMPES simula-
tors which could be extended to fully implicit simu-
lators. This scheme produces identical results to the
nine-point difference scheme and can be easily im-
plemented in simulators using five-point scheme.
Only recently Brand et al. (1991) have carried out
linear stability analysis to the difference equations
for immiscible, incompressible two-phase flow and
showed that grid orientation is a numerical manifes-
tation of physical instability. They concluded that
grid orientation cannot be overcome with grid refine-
ment, and they provided a technique for estimating
block size for which errors remain small and limited
by local truncation error.
8. Other simulation problems
The preceding discussion touched on a few items
that need attention in thermal simulation. Several
other problems may occur, where a clear solution is
still not available. Some of the difficulties are related
to potential inversions that may occur for a variety of
reasons. The usual solution is to check the flow
direction after each inner iteration. Coupled well-
bores are seldom used, but the errors resulting from
uncoupled wellbore and reservoir flow equations can many physical phenomena present in thermal pro-
be significant, as shown by Kasraie and Farouq Ali cesses still elude mathematical description.
(1988).
Grid block size can be serious impediment in
simulating processes where steep fronts occur. Steam 10. Notation
injection in very viscous oils and in-situ combustion
are examples of this type. In the latter case, the A, B, C. D submatrices in Fig. 1
problem is particularly serious. To obtain meaningful B’, D' submatrices in Fig. 2
results from the measured reaction kinetics, the grid I,, 12 steam injection rates for options
block size would have to be of the order of half-a- 1 and 2, respectively
meter (Chu, 1981). specified steam mass injection
Simulation of fractures induced by air or steam rate
injection is a complex problem. The proper approach index or volumetric injection rate
to use is to couple the geomechanics of the surround- at reservoir conditions
ing rocks with the reservoir heat and fluid flow k,, K, physical equilibrium ratio and
equations (Tortike and Farouq Ali, 1987). At pre- pseudo-equilibrium ratio for
sent, while progress is being made in this direction, component i, respectively
the usual procedure is to presuppose the length, I index for block number in an
direction and orientation of the induced fracture. The ordering scheme
fracture width is normally much greater than the II old time level
actual width because of numerical considerations. An n,, 112 number of constraints and flow
example of such an approach is provided by the equations per block, respectively
work of Pethrick et al. (1986). If such a procedure is number of hydrocarbon compo-
employed, it is important to remember that the cus- nents in oil phase
tomary use of harmonic averages in simulation would block pressure
tend to distort the high permeability of the fracture. flowing BHP and maximum BHP
To minimize this effect, perhaps three blocks should of injection well
be used to represent the total width of the fracture. well geometric factor
This type of problem was noted by Huppler (1970). right-hand-side subvectors for
Time step selection is a matter of considerable con- block 1
cern in thermal simulation. Sammon and Rubin s,>S”> s,, s,, phase saturation for gas, oil,
(1983) discussed this aspect of reservoir simulation water and phase p, respectively
in details and developed a time step selection scheme imposed critical gas saturation
that was based on minimizing truncation errors. steam saturation
functions defined by Eqs. (3)-(S)
subvectors of unknown vector for
block 1
-\-, mole fraction of component i in
oil phase
9. Conclusions
?‘,. .v, mole fraction of component i
and steam in gas phase
Numerical simulation of thermal recovery meth- gas phase and steam compress-
ods is still in a state of flux. This paper considered a ibility factors
few selected topics that are of considerable impor-
Greek letters:
tance, for which guidelines were given from the
author’s experience. Still other difficulties remain, constants of the order of 1W5
which are addressed according to the preferences of total mobility of all phases in
the person doing the simulation. Apart from this, injection block
 J.H. Abou-Kassem/ Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering
density of wet-steam, water and
Pmix3 Pw? Ps
steam, respectively
u iteration number
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