There are various methods are used to heat the crude oil in the formation to reduce its

viscosity and/or vaporize part of the oil. Methods include cyclic steam injection, steam
drive and in situ combustion. These methods improve the sweep efficiency and the
displacement efficiency.
This research focuses on the method of in situ combustion which is also considered as
one of the secondary part of the enhanced oil recovery EOR.
The principle of in-situ combustion is to achieve combustion within the pores of a
hydrocarbon-bearing reservoir, burning part of the oil in place in order to improve the
flow of the unburned part. Combustion is supported by the injection of air into the
reservoir at one or more wells.
The purpose of this work is to present and explain about the in-situ combustion aspects,
principles, advantages, disadvantages and the method applications.

This technique is defined as a method of thermal recovery or enhanced oil recovery in

which heat is generated within the reservoir by injecting air, oxygen, or mixtures of air
and oxygen and burning a portion of the oil in place. A special heater in the well ignites
the oil in the reservoir and starts a fire.
The heat generated by burning the heavy hydrocarbon in place producers hydrocarbon
cracking, vaporization of light hydrocarbon and reservoir water in addition to the
deposition of heavier hydrocarbon known as coke. As the fire moves, the burning front
pushes ahead a mixture of hot combustion gases, steam and hot water, which in turn
reduces oil viscosity and displaces oil toward production wells. So this is why this
method is sometimes applied to reservoirs containing oil too viscous or heavy to be
produced by conventional means.
In addition, the light hydrocarbons and the steam move ahead of the burning front,
condensing into liquids, which adds the advantages of miscible displacement and hot
water-flooding.

1
Moreover, this process is sometimes started by lowering a heater or igniter into an
injection well. Air is then injected down the well, and the heater is operated until ignition
is accomplished. After heating the surrounding rock, the heater is withdrawn, but air
injection is continued to maintain the advancing combustion front. Water is sometimes
injected simultaneously or alternately with air, creating steam which contributes to better
heat utilization and reduced air requirements.
Many interactions occur in this process, but the next points reports the essential elements,
in addition to followed figure1 which show a schematic diagram of in situ combustion
process:
-the zone is burned out as the combustion front advances.
-Any water formed or injected will turn to steam in this zone because of residual heat.
This steam flows on into the unburned area of the formation, helping to heat.
-this shows the combustion zone which advance through the formation.
-High temperature just ahead of the combustion zone cause lighter fractions of the oil to
vaporize, leaving a heavy residual coke or carbon as fuel for advancing combustion front.
-a vaporizing zone that contains combustion products, vaporized light hydrocarbons, and
steam.
-in this zone, owing to its distance from the combustion front, cooling causes light
hydrocarbon to condense and steam to revert back to hot water, this action displace oil,
condensed steam thins the oil, and combustion gases aid in driving the oil to production
wells.
-the oil bank will grow cooler as it moves toward production wells, and temperatures will
drop to that near initial reservoir temperature.
When the oil bank reaches the production wells, the oil, water, and gases will be brought
to the surface and separated- the oil to be sold and the water and gases sometimes re-
injected. The process will be terminated by stopping air injection when pre-designated
areas are burned out or the burning front reaches production wells.
Notice in the accompanying illustration that the lighter steam vapors and combustion
gases tend to rise into the upper portion of the producing zone, lessening the effectiveness
of this method. Injection of water alternately or simultaneously with air can lessen the
detrimental overriding effect.

2
Theoretically it is the viscosity reduction due to increased temperature inside the
reservoir, which is the driving force behind the recovery. There are different fronts that
have been created inside the reservoir with cracked hydrocarbon leading the front
and the burning heavy hydrocarbon behind the front. The fuel requirement is 5% of the
HC in place, which is nothing but the residue resulting from the pyrolysis process. The
compressed air, more preferably oxygen-enriched air is injected into the injector well and
combustion is carried out.
In addition to what previously presented of In- situ combustion, this method is also
defined as a fire flooding method.

Figure1 – Schematic diagram of in-situ combustion process

In-situ combustion has been utilized for over 80 years in more than two hundred fields
around the world. It is normally employed as a recovery process in more difficult

3
reservoirs as a secondary or tertiary process. The method has been experimented by many
fields in some countries and the following sequence present the applying stages of the
technique:

1923 – the in-situ combustion appeared in 1923 (first U.S. patent).

1948 – since then 10 fields experiments have been conducted in various parts of U.S.,
Canada and South America, including one test in Colorado oil shale..

1960s - The poster child for in-situ combustion success is Suplacu de Barcau, which has
been operating in northwestern Romania since the mid-1960s and is still running today,
producing about 8,000 to 10,000 barrels a day. Suplacu de Barcau is a very shallow,
dipping heavy oil reservoir in unconsolidated sands. Starting a mere 36 meters beneath its
namesake village, the fire front extends down dip for several kilometers to a depth of
300-350 meters. It was said that Suplacu de Barcau is a “line drive,” the project firsthand
last year. A series of air injection wells are drilled in a line, then a series of oil producers.
The fire propagates from injector to producer. As the production wells get heated they’re
converted to air injectors.

1965 - Mobil Canada Ltd. began a vertical well fireflood in conventional (cold flow)
heavy oil at Battrum, Saskatchewan. It produced up to 7,000-10,000 barrels a day, and
operated until 2003 — about four years after Mobil Canada’s parent merged into Exxon
Mobil Corporation.

1978 - Since 1978, nine light-oil combustion projects have operated in the Williston
Basin at the corner of North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. It was reported that
two producers — Encore Acquisition Company and Continental Resources, Inc. — have
more than 240 mmcf a day of air-injection capacity. They call it high-pressure air
injection — where they inject air at anywhere from 4,300 (pounds per square inch) to
5,000 psi wellhead pressure,” it is reported that the oil is more than 30 degrees API

4
gravity. It is said that these projects were interesting, because horizontal wells are used
for both air injection and oil production.
In addition, because of the water-flooding works more efficiently on the tighter spacing,
Continental has been converting to water injection from air injection as it down spaces.
Continental’s two other in-situ combustion projects remain on air injection only, as they
have been for years, says Jeff Hume, Continental’s chief operating officer. Those are the
Buffalo oilfield in Harding County, South Dakota (where air injection began in 1978).

1979 - Until 1979, the In Situ Combustion (ISC) was commercially applied mainly in
heavy oil, non-fractured, and non-carbonate reservoirs.
However, the widespread acceptance of air flooding as an Enhanced Oil Recovery EOR
process came in 1994, when the results of commercial High Pressure Air Injection HPAI
processes in the Williston basin, North and South Dakota, U.S.A., were published. These
processes were developed directly in the field without any laboratory support or reliable
numerical simulation. The main drive behind their development was a pressing need to
find an injecting agent with acceptable injectivity (better than that of water). It is
interesting to note that these processes were reported after 15 and 7 years, respectively, of
commercial operations.

1982- it was discussed a pioneer oxygen fireflood project at Forest Hill field (TX)
completed in Jan. 1982. Parallel with field test activities, a state-of-the-art combustion
tube facility was developed and installed to study the effects of oxygen enrichment on the
in-situ combustion process for a wide range of reservoir conditions.

1990- In India, three in-situ combustion projects started with a pilot test are now
commercial with combined oil production exceeding 15,000 barrels a day. Oil and
Natural Gas Corporation Ltd.
India’s largest integrated oil company, is injecting about 65 million cubic feet (mmcf) a
day of air into three reservoirs called Balol, Santhal and Lanwa. Discovered in 1970-71,
these fields are part of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation ONGC’s Mehsana asset in

5
northern Gujarat state. Reservoir depths are about 1,000 metres. The area produces
India’s heaviest crude as well as some of its lightest.
Balol and Santhal — the two major fields in the heavy oil belt — have oil densities of 15
to 18 degrees API and viscosities of 50 to 450 centipoise under reservoir conditions
(attractive compared to about a million centipoise in the Athabasca oilsands).
In-situ combustion has increased the oil recovery factor at Balol and Santhal to 39-45%
from the six to 12% range, said a 2007 Society of Petroleum Engineers paper by ONGC’s
A. Doraiah, Sibaprasad Ray and Pankaj Gupta.
Regarding to such results it was comment that 'with conventional oil reserves declining,
this technique is becoming more and more techno-economically feasible for exploitation
of heavy oil reserves.

1993 - Again the Indian success is a source of pride for the University of Calgary’s (U of
C) In Situ Combustion Research Group, which has been collaborating with ONGC on the
project since about 1993.
Mehta who is a petroleum engineering professor at the University of Calgary’s Schulich
School of Engineering and who have been championing in-situ combustion for many
years said that ''a research lab for the project was built at U of C and shipped to India,
where it operates. The oil production rate of 15,000 barrels a day is constrained by the air
injection rate, Meanwhile, other countries are drawing on the University of Calgary’s
expertise in in-situ combustion.

2003 – a continental Resources had the largest in-situ combustion project — its Cedar
Hills North Unit in Bowman County, North Dakota which began in 2003 — and it was
working very well on the pattern that was had. But it was decided to double the number
of wells in the unit to increase productivity, and when it was narrowed that spacing
[water] would work efficiently at that density. So as it was drilled infill wells it was been
converting from air to water just because it’s a cheaper injecting. But some areas of
Cedar Hills will always remain on air injection. With the conversions to water injection
Continental’s total oil production from in-situ combustion from the three projects is now
between 5,400 and 7,500 barrels a day - producing 11,500 barrels of oil a day. However,

6
the Oklahoma-based company has been increasing the well density on that unit. and
because waterflooding works more efficiently on the tighter spacing, Continental has
been converting to water injection from air injection left) and

2004 - the Alberta – Canada Energy and Utilities Board - Injected air replaces gas in
depleted gas over bitumen reservoir. there has been some progress in the development of
technical solutions such as EnCana Corporation's EnCAID (EnCana Air Injection and
Displacement) process that once again could permit the production of both natural gas
and bitumen.
Although EnCana Corporation is a major SAGD player at Foster Creek and Christina
Lake, it also holds gas rights, using the gas it produces in its in-situ oilsands operations.
The company has had a total of 50 mmcf per day of gas production shut-in.
In the EnCAID process, air is injected into the reservoir and the residual (20% to 30%)
oil saturation in the gas zone provides the fuel for an in-situ combustion process that is
used mainly to remove oxygen from the displacing gas stream for safety. As such, it is
able to operate successfully with the combustion front eventually stalling about 50 metres
from the injection well but continuing to consume oxygen with the 900 C high-
temperature oxidation reaction.
Overall EnCAID field results compare very favourably with the simulation models. As
the maximum preheat steam injection was 280 C and field measurements have reported
temperatures of up to 400 C within the formation, successful heat generation from in-situ
combustion fuelled by the oil in the gas zone has been demonstrated.

2008 - Regulatory approval was performed July 9 for a two-well project using Toe-to-
Heel Air Injection THAI in a conventional heavy oil reservoir at Kerrobert in southern
Saskatchewan. Kerrobert drilling was expected to finish by Aug. 31 and the pre-ignition
heating cycle was to begin immediately. First oil production is slated for early October.
The heavy oil/oilsands division’s entire production in the second quarter was the 205
barrels a day from a single Whitesands well. A firm timeframe for profitability has yet to
be established. It was reported that “The best performance of any THAI well has been
200 barrels per day of sustained and uninterrupted production, and that works out to

7
about $75,000 per flowing barrel.... although it was considered a successful results, it was
expected to have performance of about 500 barrels-plus per well.
Chris Bloomer, Petrobank’s senior vice-president and chief operating officer for heavy
oil, said air injection drives the process, and the project hasn’t had continuous air
injection for a significant period because of operational issues. “But we have seen these
wells produce in that 400-to-500-barrel-a-day range. So certainly that capacity is there.
...Bear in mind that the first wells that we drilled were the problematic wells,” Bloomer
said, expressing confidence in the recently drilled new wells.
Asked when its independent reserves evaluator, McDaniel & Associates Consultants
Ltd., might give Petrobank credit for THAI, Bloomer said: “I think by the end of
the year we should be able to discuss that. …This is a new technology and we are
breaking trail with respect to that.” Although Whitesands continues to be a developing
story, Petrobank has three more in-situ combustion projects in the works:
• It filed a regulatory application for a 10,000-barrel-a-day in-situ combustion project,
called May River, on nearby oilsands leases west of Conklin. Front end engineering and
design (FEED) for this project began last fall and is expected to finish late this year.
Kerrobert. An analyst asked whether the company’s expectation that THAI wells would
produce 600 barrels of bitumen a day might still be realized with the new liners.
“The initial design at Whitesands is 600 barrels a day. We certainly think that’s the
capability there. And it’s a similar forecast and design for Kerrobert,” Bloomer noted.
Pressed by an investor, he said the goal is to reach full production capacity at Kerrobert
in December or January.

2009 – after many investigation and researches - some companies are less risk adverse
than others. Most oilsands entrepreneurs proposing or doing new in-situ projects have
opted to use Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD). While SAGD isn’t the best
recovery method for every reservoir, the technology itself certainly has been proven on a
large-scale commercial basis since early this decade.
Excelsior Energy Limited assumes SAGD would work on its lease at Hangingstone in
northeastern Alberta. In fact, McDaniel & Associates Consultants Ltd., Excelsior’s
independent reserves evaluator, calculated its estimate of Hangingstone’s contingent

8
resource (between 127 million and 230 million barrels of bitumen) on the assumption that
it could be extracted using SAGD.
The current technology underpinning the province’s estimate of ultimately recoverable
oilsands requires more gas than Canada or other counties have — So it isn’t surprising
the industry is exploring technologies that burn less gas. Nexen Inc. and OPTI Canada
Inc., for example, hope to significantly reduce gas consumption at their big Long Lake
project by substituting bitumen-based fuel for its hot-water boilers. On the reservoir side,
Long Lake is a conventional steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) project — it injects
steam to heat bitumen so it will flow to production wells.
Therefore, the in-situ combustion is proven With long-running commercial projects in
Romania, India and the U.S. as a more radical approach than any extraction method now
in commercial use in Western Canada. A small portion of the oil is ignited in the
reservoir, creating a flame front to heat the heavy hydrocarbon so it will flow to
production wells.

Recently, an improved work of what basically done it was found out that done in the
1990s by the Alberta Oil Sands Technology Research Authority and, separately, by
Mobil Canada Ltd. This is related to Combustion Overhead Gravity Drainage COGD
which shown in figure2 Bailey said that ''Excelsior has done proprietary work on a pre-
ignition heat cycle. Because relatively little work was done on bitumenin the earlier days,
Excelsior has done some original work on how to get the process started.
In addition (cold flow) heavy oil, not bitumen, is considered as the key similarity is
gravity flow. The process works by burning the top and draining from the bottom. In
addition the gravity drainage is the key difference between Suplacu de Barcau and many
of the in-situ combustion projects that failed. And this indicate the benefit of COGD and
members of the University of Calgary’s In Situ Combustion Research Group, whichhas
long promoted fire as a recovery mechanism, shared their knowledge with Bailey when
he approached them with his concept. And they believe this COGD concept has a lot of
merit.

9
 Figure2 – Illustrate COGD Process

Although what all presented previously presented many successful trails in this
technique, A handful of unsuccessful pilot tests operated in Western Canada in past
years. There may be various reasons why individual projects weren’t commercialized;
some experts suggest that. “it was injected at way too small a rate,”
A BP plc project — done jointly with the Alberta Oil Sands Technology Research
Authority — was successful, he says, because it injected oxygen at fairly high rates. The
projects in India and Romania are successful because they inject air at rates necessary to
sustain combustion.

There are some methods of in-situ combustion are reported as following:

1-Dry forward combustion

10
In this process, the combustion front acts as a piston which pushes ahead of it the unburnt
crude fractions from the swept zones. The heavy fractions, converted into coke, are burnt
with the oxygen in the air injected to sustain combustion.
Under steady state condition, the reservoir can be divided into four principles zones,
numbered from upstream, as shown in figure3:

Figure3 – Forward Combustion

Zone1: combustion has already taken place and the formation in this zone is completely
clean. The injection air is heated by the hot matrix and part of the combustion energy is
recovered in this way, temperature decreases upstream.
Zone2: the combustion zone. Oxygen is consumed by combustion reactions involving the
hydrocarbons and the coke remaining on the rock surface. The temperature reached in
this zone depends essentially on the nature of solids, liquids and gases present per unit
formation volume.
Zone3:The coke formation zone. The heavy oil fractions which have been neither
displaced nor vaporized undergo pyrolysis. These cracking reactions may occur in the
presence of oxygen, if the latter has not been completely consumed in the combustion
zone.

11
Zone4: where the temperature has fallen sufficiently, there are no further significant
chemical changes. This zone is swept by the combustion gases and displaced fluids, and
the following phenomena take place.
-In the downstream region nearest the reaction zone, successive vaporization and
condensation of the light oil fractions and the interstitial water take place, as does
condensation of the water of combustion. This tends to accelerate the downstream heat
transfer.
-In the region where the temperature is lower than that of water condensation, a zone with
water saturation higher than the initial water saturation exists (water bank) which pushes
a zone with an oil saturation higher than original (oil bank). If the oil is highly viscous
this may result in plugging of the formation. In every case, these two banks are a zone of
high pressure loss. Beyond the oil bank the formation progressively approaches its
original conditions.

2-Forward combustion combined with water injection (wet combustion)

During forward combustion, the enthalpy stored in the matrix is only partly used to
preheat the air injected, the rest being lost to the surrounding formation.
Thus the idea arose of combining water and air injection after start up of the combustion
process. In this way the high thermal capacity of water may be used to recover the
enthalpy remaining behind the front and transport it downstream.
The process may be conveniently divided into five zones, as shown in previous figure3:
Zone1: this zone has already been swept by the combustion front and contains little or no
hydrocarbon. However, since the temperature is lower than the boiling point of the water,
the pores contain a liquid water saturation, the remainder of the space being occupied by
the injected air.
Zone2: water is the vapor phase in this zone, and the pores are saturated with a mixture of
injected air and steam. The injected water vaporization front is at the boundary between
zone 1 and 2.
Zone3: the combustion zone. Oxygen is consumed in the combustion of the hydrocarbons
and of the deposited coke formed in the downstream part of the zone.

12
Zone4: the vaporization – condensation zone. The temperature in this zone is close to that
of the vaporization of water. Progressive condensation of steam and combustion water
takes place in this zone. In addition, some light and intermediate oil fractions are
vaporized and carried downstream. If the temperature is high enough certain chemical
reactions may occur in this zone.
Zone5: just downstream of the vaporization - condensation zone is a zone of high back-
pressure, due to the formation of a water bank preceded by an oil bank. Further
downstream the formation gradually approaches its initial conditions.

3-Reverse combustion
After ignition, the combustion front moves from producing well towards the injection
well this process actually refers to dry reverse combustion and can be used to recover
extremely viscous oil or tar. In reverse combustion, the liquid blocking problem is solved
because a hot zone is maintained near the production well. Despite this advantage, this
process is not as efficient as dry forward combustion because lighter fractions of the oil
are burned and heavier fractions are left behind the burning front. Another drawback is
the possibility of a spontaneous ignition in the injector well, which will divert air for
combustion near the injector well instead of near the producer.

A schematic drawing of the equipment used for a laboratory study of in-situ combustion
is shown on the following figure4 and figure5. The laboratory experiments are using
core samples impregnated with oil. In addition, the laboratory experiments can be made
either on a representative reservoir core sample as shown in figure 4 or on a cylinder
sand section prepared by mixing reservoir oil and water with sand and kaolinite . The size
distribution of sand-kaolinite mixture must resemble that of the reservoir rock. Crushed
cores from the reservoir rock can also be used.

13
 Figure4 – In-situ combustion apparatus

Figure5- Overview of the in-situ combustion and steam injection apparatus

14
Advantages of The Technique
Compared to the other thermal recovery methods, in- situ combustion has many
advantages:
*The heat is only released in the porous medium itself: there is thus no problem of heat
loss in the injection wells.
*Favorable economic and technical conditions may be found to enable commercial use of
*Combustion of a heavy residue of low value, production of an oil lighter than that in
place and generally not particularly corrosive, solution of CO2 in the oil resulting in a
lowering of its viscosity.
*this method is a more radical approach than any extraction method in commercial use.
*Particularly of oxygen for in-situ combustion for EOR offers several potential technical
and economic advantages include faster oil production, reduced compression costs per
unit of injected oxygen, ability to sustain combustion with air.

Limits of Application
*Depth of the formation: limited to around 1500 – 1800m due to the high air injection
pressure which would be required in deeper formations. Neither can this technique be
used in the depth of the reservoir is less than 50 m (the overburden may not be able to
withstand the injection pressure).
*Thickness of the formation: must be ticker than 2 m (to avoid excessive heat losses).
*Permeability: preferably at least 100 md.
*Oil and matrix characteristics: the oil should not be too viscous, to prevent formation
plugging by the oil bank, and sufficient coke must be deposited to feed the combustion
process. It is often considered that these conditions maybe met if the oil specific gravity
is between 0.8 and 1.0 g/cm3. However, this specific gravity range is merely inductive,
due to the unknown interaction between oil and matrix and the subsequent effects on both
flowing properties and chemical reactions.

15
*Sometimes, sand production cause problem in-situ combustion method, but thist could
be treated with the drilling of new wells with a new well-liner design.

In addition to these technical limitations, economic factors must be considered. In

particular, it is important that the air requirement is not to high, since air compression is
an expensive part of the in-situ combustion process.
However, the most significant economic factor is the ratio of the amount of air injection
to that of oil produced: under optimum conditions its lies between 1000 and 2000 sm3
air/m3 oil. For this ratio to be economically acceptable the initial oil saturation should be
large compared with the volume of coke burned to feed the combustion (the latter being
of the order of 10 to 40 kg/m3 of formation). It is often considered that the limiting initial
oil content for the application of the in-situ combustion is of the order of 100 litters of oil
cubic meter of formation.
Wet combustion appears to be more economically attractive than dry combustion: the
injection of water, at relatively low cost, results in a large reduction in the volume of the
air required to recover a given volume of oil (ref.23). the use of high water/air ratios is in
some cases very attractive : under certain condition oxidation at the temperature of
vaporization of water may take place, and may propagate through the porous medium
even after the high temperature zone has been extinguished. However, this particular
method of situ combustion, known as ''super-wet'' combustion, has not yet been fully
studied.

Applying a combustion process in the field is obviously rather more complex than it is in
the laboratory, where only one-dimensional process are studied. The shape of a
combustion front is affected by the geometrical distribution of the injection and
production wells, by the heat losses to the surrounding formations, by thick reservoir
heterogeneities and by gravity. The latter is particularly important in thick formation, in
which the injected air tends to channel preferentially to the top of the formation.
Technical problems of in-situ combustion

16
Air combustion: multi-stage reciprocation compressors are used, the compression ratio
per stage being between 2 and 3. The injection pressure is determined by the
characteristics of the formation, and the capacity of the compressors by the pore volume
to be swept.
For any given injection pressure, the compression ratio for the selected number of stages
and the horsepower required per stage can be determined from next table for a range of
overall compression efficiencies (generally about 70% of that of perfect adiabatic
compression). An example of the results obtained is given below.
No. of stages Compression ratio Horsepower per Total Horsepower
stage per 1000s m3 Per 1000s m3
air/day air/day
3 3.56 3.39 10.17
4 2.59 2.42 9.68

In this case 4 stages of compression would be chosen.

For wet combustion the injection well must be provided with water injection pumps. The
air and water may either be injected simultaneously as a mixture, or alternately is
successive slug.

■ Oxygen In-Situ Combustion for Oil Recovery: Combustion Tube Tests

In this operation method a high-pressure laboratory combustion tube system was
designed and built for oxygen service to evaluate the in-situ combustion process with air
and oxygen enrichment. Initial tests for the combustion tube used a light crude oil and
simulated, homogeneous reservoir conditions. Combustion tube runs were made with
21% O2 (air) to 95% O2 at a constant total gas (O2 + N2) flux. Runs at 21 and 30% O2
produced unsatisfactory combustion. Tests at 40% O2 and greater produced satisfactory
combustion; apparent coke composition, coke loading, combustion temperature, and
oxygen utilization efficiency were similar to values ordinarily reported for air
combustion. Combustion-front velocity increased substantially with enrichment, and the
time required for initial oil production and the total injected gas required per barrel of
production and the total injected gas required per barrel of oil both decreased

17
substantially. Some partial oxidation of the oil was indicated, but there did not appear to
be a trend toward increased oxidation with oxygen enrichment up to 95% O2.
Figure6 - Shows combustion tube system schematic

Figure6- Combustion tube system schematic

■ Method for enhanced oil recovery through a horizontal production well in a

subsurface formation by in- Situ combustion
A horizontal production well is located in the lower portion of a heavy viscous oil-
bearing reservoir. A vertical injection well is located in the upper portion of the reservoir.
Oxygen – enriched gas is injected down the injector well and ignited in the upper portion
of the reservoir to create a combustion zone that reduce viscosity of oil in the reservoir as
the combustion zone advance downwardly toward the horizontal production well, the
reduced- viscosity oil draining into the horizontal production well under force of gravity.
In this method, an oxygen containing gas is injected into a reservoir through the injection
well with ignition of oil within the adjacent reservoir initiated by means for establishing a
combustion front. The reservoir is usually provided with one or more vertical production

18
wells for the oil production. As the flow of oxygen-containing gas to the reservoir is
continued, the combustion front is moved from the vertical injection well toward the
production wells. The heat generated by burning reduces the viscosity of the oil which is
displaced ahead of the combustion front toward the production wells from which the oil
is recovered. The combustion front, in displacing the mobile oil, use the residual
carbonaceous deposit as fuel.
Various problems are associated with the in-situ combustion drive method. There is
formed in front of the combustion front and relatively near the vertical injection well, a
hot bank of hydrocarbon is much less than the viscosity of the hydrocarbons exiting in
the remainder of the reservoir and near the vertical production well. Thus, the capacity of
the reservoir to flow hydrocarbons is much less near the production well than near the
injection well. This results in a condition which is sometimes referred to as ''fluid
blocking''. When this condition occurs, flow of the lower viscosity hot bank of
hydrocarbons near the injection well is related by the slower rate of flow of the higher
viscosity hydrocarbons near the production well. Under severe conditions where highly
viscous fluids are present in the reservoir, the hydrocarbons near the production well may
be relatively immobile and thus may, to a large extent, prevent the hot bank of
hydrocarbons from flowing toward and into the production well. This results in a loss of
efficiency and an excessive amount of the hydrocarbons may be burned in the reservoir.

19
Figure7 - Illustrates this in-situ combustion method with a vertical well, a horizontal
well and a pair of vent wells.

Figure8 - Illustrates this in-situ combustion method as being carried out with a plurality
of horizontal production wells with intermediary vertical injection wells and vent wells.

■ Method for determining the position and inclination of a flame front during in-
situ combustion of an oil shale retort (operation method)
This method relates to the detection and control of a combustion or flame front being
advanced through a subterranean carbonaceous stratum. Specially, this method relates to
the detection and control of a combustion techniques. More specifically, this method
relates to the detection and control of flame front during in-situ combustion retorting of
oil shale.
Oil shale contain an organic material called Kerosene, which is a solid carbonaceous
material from which shale oil can be retorted. Upon heating oil shale to a sufficient
temperature, Kerogen is decomposed and a liquid and/or gaseous hydrocarbon product is
formed.

20
In-situ combustion oil shale generally comprises techniques forming a retort or retorting
area underground, preferably witin the oil shale. The retorting zone is formed by mining
an access tunnel to or near the retorting zone and then removing a portion of the oil shale
deposit by conventional mining techniques. About 5 to 40%, preferably about 15 to 25%,
of the oil shale in the retorting area is removed to provide void space in the retorting area.
The oil shale in the retorting area is then rubbled by well known mining techniques to
provide a retort containing rubbled shale for retorting.
After the underground retort is formed, the pile of rubbled shale is subjected to retorting.
Hot retorting gases are passed through the rubbled shale to effectively form and remove
liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons from the oil shale. This is commonly done by passing a
retorting gas such as or air mixed with steam and /or hydrocarbons through the deposit.
Most commonly, air is pumped into one end of the retort and a fire or flame front
initiated. This flame front is then passed slowly through the rubbled deposit to effect the
restoration. Not only is shale oil effectively produced but also a mixture of off gases from
the rotating is formed. These gases contain carbon monoxide, ammonia, cabon dioxide,
hydrogen sulfide, carbonyl sulfide, and oxides of sulfur and nitrogen. Generally, a
mixture of off gases, water and shale oil are recovered from the retort. This mixture
undergoes preliminary separation commonly by gravity to separate the gases, liquid oil,
and water. The off-gases commonly contain entrained dust and hydrocarbons, some of
which are liquid or liquefiable under moderate pressure, the off-gases usually have a very
low heat content of less than about 100 to about 150 BTU/ft3.
One problem attending shale oil production in in-situ retorts is that flame front may
channel through more combustionable portions of rubble faster than others. The resulting
uneven passage of the flame front can leave considerable portion of the rubbled volume
bypassed and unproductive. Such channeling can result from non-uniform size and
density distribution in the rubbled shale. If the shape of the flame front can be defined or
backing variation detected within the retort, then channeling and its effects can be
mitigated by controlling the air injection rate and the oxygen content in various sectors of
the retort, or secondary rubbling if regions of poor density can be mapped.

21
One disadvantage in this method lies in the fact that the extremely high temperatures of
the combustion front frequently destroy the temperature- sensing apparatus. Another
disadvantage is in the cost of drilling holes to the formation level.

Figure9 - A cutaway view illustrating a subterranean oil shale formation containing a

rubbled oil shale retort during in situ combustion wherein the position of the flame front
within the retort is being monitored by initiating a seismic signal on the earth's surface
and detecting the reflected signal from the retort sidewall.

*In-situ combustion method for recovering petroleum from oil reservoirs of low
permeability and temperature
The present invention is directed to a method of enhanced oil recovery by fire flooding
petroleum reservoirs characterized by a temperature of less than the critical temperature
of carbon dioxide, a pore pressure greater than the saturated vapor pressure of carbon
dioxide at said temperature (87.7° F. at 1070 psia), and a permeability in the range of
about 20 to 100 millidarcies. The in situ combustion of petroleum in the reservoir is
provided by injecting into the reservoir a combustion supporting medium consisting
essentially of oxygen, ozone, or a combination thereof. The heat of combustion and the
products of this combustion which consist essentially of gaseous carbon dioxide and

22
water vapor sufficiently decrease the viscosity of oil adjacent to fire front to form an oil
bank which moves through the reservoir towards a recovery well ahead of the fire front.
The gaseous carbon dioxide and the water vapor are driven into the reservoir ahead of the
fire front by pressure at the injection well. As the gaseous carbon dioxide cools to less
than about 88° F. it is converted to liquid which is dissolved in the oil bank for further
increasing the mobility thereof. By using essentially pure oxygen, ozone, or a
combination thereof as the combustion supporting medium in these reservoirs the
permeability requirements of the reservoirs are significantly decreased since the liquid
carbon dioxide requires substantially less voidage volume than that required for gaseous
combustion products.

Figure10 – Recovery of oil heat from in-situ combustion

■ Method of in-situ combustion with intermittent injection of volatile liquid

A method of repeatedly heating the formation by alternately conducting in situ
combustion in the lower portion of the formation and injecting a volatile hydrocarbon
liquid into the heated zone to increase heat transfer and dilute the in place hydrocarbons.
Inert gas may be injected into the upper portion of the formation during combustion, and
accumulated gases produced through upper perforations of the production well.

23
■ Field scale simulation study of in-situ combustion in high pressure light oil
reservoir
The primary objective of the study is to examine the feasibility of in-situ combustion
processes in North Sea type high-pressure, volatile light oil reservoirs. The reservoir
operational parameters have been optimized, and the results of this study are useful for
screening of EOR processes, as well as the design and interpretation of in-situ
combustion projects.
A simulation study has examined the sensitivities of important in-situ combustion
parameters on a field scale. Variations in well pattern size, air injection rates and
injection fluid (air, O2, CO2, N2) were also examined. Techniques were devised to
model the combustion process in a large field-size grid. Results from areal and cross-
sectional models were combined to obtain a three-dimensional analysis of the fire flood
performance for various well patterns.
Simulation runs revealed combustion front extinction problems due to large grid block
size expected for well spacing higher than 2.5 acres also with kinetic controlled field
scale models. Extinction of the combustion front significantly reduces predicted areal
sweep and oil recovery, resulting in shorter project lifetimes. Kinetic controlled field
scale models for well spacing lower than 2.5 acres can predict combustion front
formation and vaporization of water and light petroleum components, when simulated
with commercial simulators having about 200 grid blocks.
The simulations also show that the vertical sweep efficiency is predominantly controlled
by the vertical permeability variation in the reservoir. The detailed simulation output
showed that mass transfer between phases, oil vaporization, cross flow between layers
and heat loss to the adjacent formations are important processes in this thermal recovery
process.
Front tracking and a thin flame technique are considered to be important for enhancing
simulation capability. The development of more advanced non-isothermal simulators
with these capabilities will increase the reliability of air-flood simulation predictions in
high pressure light petroleum reservoirs necessary to reveal higher recovery potential
than predicted by current simulation predictions.

24
The Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) potential performance of thermal IOR processes, such
as air and oxygen injection in-situ combustion processes, is predicted the highest among
the alternative options.

■ Upgrading of crude oil via in situ combustion

Crude oil upgrading is of major economic importance. Heavy crude oils exist in large
quantities in the western hemisphere, but are difficult to produce and transport because of
their high viscosity. Some crude oils contain compounds such as sulfur and/or heavy
metals causing additional refining problems and costs. In situ upgrading could be a very
beneficial process for leaving the unwanted elements in the reservoir and increasing API
gravity.
In situ combustion has long been used as an enhanced oil recovery method. For heavy
oils, numerous field observations have shown upgrading of 2° to 6° API for heavy oils
undergoing combustion [Ramey, H.J., Jr., Stamp, V.V., Pebdani, F.N., 1992. Case
History of South Belridge, California, In Situ Combustion Oil Recovery, SPE 24200,
Proc. 9th SPE/DOE EOR Symposium, Tulsa, April 21–24.]. During in situ combustion of
heavy oils, temperatures of up to 700 °C can be observed at the combustion front.
This paper describes the changes caused by the various reactions occurring during
combustion with emphasis on the upgrading potential for various oil types. We will first
describe the in situ combustion process with an examination of the temperature changes
and chemical reactions that can either upgrade or degrade the oil in terms of its API
gravity and viscosity. In the second part, we present results from three combustion tube
runs aimed at sulfur removal. We will end by discussing possible in situ upgrading
strategies using combinations of in situ combustion and other improved recovery
methods.
*There currently exists a large supply of heavy crude oils which are relatively
uneconomical to produce. However, there are processes available which can be used in a
downhole environment to upgrade them, resulting in significantly less sulfur and lowered
densities and viscosities. A process which is especially favorable for downhole
implementation is the use of in situ combustion to generate reactive upgrading gases,
such as CO2 and to drive oil over a near-wellbore heated bed of catalyst. Two laboratory

25
combustion tube runs were completed to test this concept. These differed from normal
combustion experiments in that they employed a heated processing zone over which
combustion gases and fluids passed prior to production. The first run used sand in the
processing zone, and the second a bed of catalyst. The Middle Eastern heavy crude oil
used was amenable to combustion, and the presence of a heated production-end
processing zone did not affect the combustion performance. Passing oil and combustion
gases over the catalyst prior to production resulted in substantial upgrading of the
produced oil, including a 50% level of hydrogen sulfurization and substantial decreases
in oil gravity and viscosity. The catalyst efficiently converted CO 2 generated at the
combustion front, to H2, which then reacted with the oil to effect upgrading. The catalyst-
bearing zone appeared to have a very low residual water saturation and was effectively
oil wet, thus assuring that good oil-catalyst contacting occurred. However, it was found
that the presence of a large amount of coke on the catalyst may indicate the need for
periodic regeneration.

In conclusion, it seem to be the in-situ combustion technique has been widely improved
for all over the world and particularly this process have already been tested in different
environments, however, there are some countries have never used this technique in their
fields.
In-situ combustion has great technical promise, needed to be understood of its
mechanistic and predictive understanding of the process.
Since, in-Situ Combustion is applicable and most successful method over a widely, This
has been the purpose of this research to improve the knowledge state of the in-situ
combustion process and our predictive capabilities.

26
Figure1 - Schematic diagram of in-situ combustion process.

Figure2 - Illustrate COGD Process.

Figure3 - Forward Combustion

Figure4 - In-situ combustion apparatus.

Figure5 - Overview of the in-situ combustion and steam injection apparatus.

Figure6 - Shows combustion tube system schematic.

Figure7 - Illustrates this in-situ combustion method with a vertical well, a

horizontal well and a pair of vent wells.
Figure8 - Illustrates this in-situ combustion method as being carried out with a
plurality of horizontal production wells with intermediary vertical
injection wells and vent wells.
Figure9 - A cutaway view illustrating a subterranean oil shale formation
containing a rubbled oil shale retort during in situ combustion wherein
the position of the flame front within the retort is being monitored by
initiating a seismic signal on the earth's surface and detecting the
reflected signal from the retort sidewall.
Figure10- Recovery of oil heat from in-situ combustion.

27
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