IN SITU COMBUSTION

In Situ combustion describes the inflammation of the heavy oil in the formation by the
injection of air or any suitable oxidizing gas to increase the recovery factor of the deposit.

Date: Monday, January 14, 2019

Highlights:
• The spontaneous ignition occurred within a number of air injection operations in the U.S.
in the mid and late 1920's.
• The modifications aimed at increasing efficiency had been significant variations aimed at
handling reservoir situations apparently not covered by in situ combustion.
• In situ combustion process involving movement of a burning front normal to a thin gas
channel or high permeability streak
• The concentration of fuel is a function of oil, that is, the heavier the crude, the denser the
fuel tank.
• The reaction of oil from around 270 ° C results in the disappearance of oxygen with the
formation of some carbon oxides, a lot of combustion water and a residue similar to coke.

Background:

Generalities
Existing some variations to increase thermal efficiency would be necessary. Kuhn and
Koch pointed out that continuous movement of a burning front from an injector to
producing wells would result in an abandonment condition including a large mass of hot,
dry rock. Grant and Szasz suggested dilution of the oxygen concentration of the injected
gas to match the velocities of the convection heat wave (due to heat recuperation by
injected gas) and the burning front. Finally, it was suggested that concurrent water and
air injection would lead to a more efficient in situ combustion process. This process has
become known as “wet combustion” or “COFCAW”

Forward, dry in situ combustion

Air or any suitable oxidizing gas is injected into a formation. The oil is ignited at the
injection well and a burning front moves in the direction of the gas flow. After the burning
front has moved a significant distance towards the producing wells.

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There is a burned region from the injection sand face to the burning front. This region
will be essentially dry. The temperature of this region will increase from the injected air
temperature at the sand face to a maximum temperature at the burning front. The
temperature drops rapidly through an evaporation and cracking zone. In this zone, all
liquid water and light components of the crude oil are vaporized, leaving the fuel residue.
Spontaneous ignitions normally occur in the formation some distance from the injection
well, then burn counter currently to the air injection stream to the injection sand face.
Experimental information from combustion tube studies indicated that the burning front
moved at a velocity directly proportional to the superficial air flux through the burning
front, and that the burning front tended to extinguish if the air flux dropped to some
minimal value.

Basically, this method assumed that the fuel concentration, the air required to burn a unit
volume and the air-oil ratio would all be constant. The limited vertical coverage by the
burning front on breakthrough at producing wells was not necessarily a detriment to
operation of the process. Indeed, this limited vertical coverage (later called “segregated
combustion”) was mainly responsible for the feasibility of operation of in situ combustion
in thick oil sands. If high percentage recovery processes were ever to be economical as
scavenging (or tertiary) processes, they should be considerably more economical as
primary production processes.

Reverse combustion

This process has only been proposed as a dry process. There is no information concerning
operation with simultaneous air and water injection. The basic features of the process are
as follows.

- Continuous air injection is affected, and then the producers are ignited causing a
burning front to move from the producers towards the injection point.
- In the “forward” combustion process, the burning front gives the appearance of
moving as all fuel is consumed. In the “reverse” combustion process, the burning
front moves as all oxygen is consumed because the fuel is present in large excess

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During the period that the burning front moves from the producers to the injection wells,
oil is produced as vapour in the gas stream and by gas drive and gravity drainage of heated
oil near the producing wells.
Although a number of field tests of this process have been conducted, this process was
doomed both operationally and economically. First, the normal reactivity of most crude
oils and tars will eventually lead to spontaneous ignition near the injection sand face and
stop the reverse combustion phase automatically. Second, the fuel concentration
consumed during the reverse and forward combustion phases was essentially equal, and
each was equal to that of the single step dry forward combustion process.

Wet combustion
If water is added to the injection air stream, the sensible heat of the injected gas stream
increases. The sensible heat for dry air is so low that the injected air cannot recuperate
heat from hot, dry rock as fast as the burning front can heat the rock. Thus, adding water
to the air stream increases the ability of the injection stream to recuperate heat and
increases the velocity of the convection wave which normally follows the combustion
front.

Wet combustion consumes the same quantity of fuel, but displaces more crude at a
given burning front location by virtue of the fact that the steam and hot water banks
have moved far ahead of the burning front.

Dry combustion has properly been characterised as a high mobility ratio process
Normally, high mobility ratios lead to fingering and poor areal coverage. Although
vertical coverage has been poor in some field operations, areal coverage has been quite
good for dry combustion operations. There has been no description of severe “fingering”
tendencies in the areal sense for dry combustion.

Contact: Luis Omar Soria

Phone: 0984112272 Email: omar_soria10@outlook.com

Bibliography:
H. J. Ramey, Jr. (13 Jun 71). In Situ Combustion. Recovered from: One Petro WPC-14229.

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