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In-situ combustion process has been proven to be an effective enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method for heavy oils. However, until now, the in-situ combustion is still not widely used as steam injection is. The main reason that limits the wide application of in-situ combustion process is the unclear understanding of its complicated combustion and displacement process that is mainly controlled by the oxidation of crude oil. The complicated composition of crude oil makes it difficult to understand the oxidation mechani...

In-situ combustion is an effective enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method for heavy oils. Whether an in-situ combustion process can be applied successfully or not depends on how the combustion process of crude oil behaves in reservoir after air injection. The oxidation process of crude oil in the reservoir is always accompanied with the pyrolysis process. Therefore, it is very essential to investigate the pyrolysis behavior of crude oil. However, the composition of crude oils is very complicated, which makes it diffic...

Growth in the world economy requires an increase in global energy demand. And oil remained the world?s leading fuel, accounting for a third of global energy consumption (BP?s Energy Outlook, 2017 edition). However, the amount of conventional light oils is rapidly declining due to long-term and largely-scale extraction. Therefore, to relieve the pressure exerted on conventional oil resources, it is imperative to efficiently develop and utilize those unconventional oil reserves. Heavy oil is considered as an alterna...

Air injection techniques (high pressure air injection and in-situ combustion) for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) have attracted extensive attention due to its low cost. Air injection can be applied in many candidate reservoirs including carbonate reservoirs that account for a great proportion of total oil reserves all over the world. Dolomite and calcite are the main minerals of carbonate reservoirs. Therefore, it is necessary to study their effect on the oxidation of crude oil as the oxidation reaction exactly occur...

Alumina and silica are commonly used as solid matrix for characterizing the combustion behavior of crude oils by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) technique. However, the two basic factors, heating rate and total sample mass, were paid less attention in the process of experiments. Our recent study found that they might significantly change the oxidation behavior due to the use of alumina and silica as solid matrix. In this study, the effects of heating rate and sample mass on the combustion behavior of crude...

In-situ combustion is an effective thermal recovery process for heavy oils and natural bitumen. It is widely accepted what the success of an in-situ combustion depends on a stable combustion front. However, field and laboratory data show that combustion front is often unstable, which severely limits the wide application of in-situ combustion technique. The goal of this work is to develop oil-soluble metal-based catalyst to improve the combustion behavior of heavy oils, and thus achieve a stable combustion front. I...

Foam flooding is a promising enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method for water-flooded reservoir due to its good mobility control capability. When foam is injected into oil reservoirs, it will contact with oil, and oil will affect the performance of foam. Therefore, the effect of oil on the properties of foam has always been a key research topic for foaming flooding, but it is also a very controversial subject. Many researchers reported that the presence of oil is detrimental for foam stability, but some others believe...