Fuel 153 (2015) 559568

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Fuel
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On hot water ooding strategies for thin heavy oil reservoirs

David W. Zhao, Ian D. Gates
Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary, Canada

h i g h l i g h t s
 In Western Canada, 80% of heavy oil resources are in reservoirs <6 m thick.
 Cold production has low recovery factor, <10%, for thin heavy oil reservoirs.
 Recovery strategy of thermal processes is unclear in thin heavy oil reservoirs.
 Optimization yields variable injection pressure/temperature hot water ood.
 Permeability distribution controls energy-to-oil ratio and economic performance.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 31 January 2015
Received in revised form 10 March 2015
Accepted 11 March 2015
Available online 21 March 2015
Keywords:
Heavy oil
Hot water ood
Thin reservoirs
Optimization
Thermal efciency
Recovery process design

a b s t r a c t
Cold production methods for heavy oil resources in Western Canada yield recovery factors averaging
about 10% and as yet, there are no commercially successful technologies to produce oil from these reservoirs with recovery factor greater than 20%. This means that the majority of oil remains in the reservoir.
The objective of this study is to determine technically and economically feasible recovery processes for
thin heavy oil reservoirs by using a simulated annealing algorithm. The results reveal that high injection
pressure is critical to a successful hot water ooding strategy. Also, they show from a thermal efciency
point of view that it is most efcient to adopt an injection temperature prole where the injection temperature starts high earlier in the process and ends at lower water temperature. The lower temperature
injection at later stages of the recovery process partially recovers the heat stored in the reservoir matrix
and therefore increases the overall heat utilization efciency. A sensitivity analysis shows that the
permeability distribution affects the performance of the hot water ooding process most signicantly.
The existence of a higher permeability zone in the lower part of the reservoir leads to earlier oil production and water breakthrough. High permeability was found to lead to more oil and water production in
the early stage of operation and achieved the best economic performance. The low permeability case
exhibited relatively low oil production volume. Although it has the lowest cumulative injected energy
to oil produced ratio, poor oil production renders the operation process uneconomic. Given the volume
of currently inaccessible thin heavy oil resources, the optimized strategies developed here provide important guidelines to convert these resources to producible reserves.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The majority of heavy oil resources, roughly 1.3 trillion barrels
of oil, in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin are found in thin
reservoirs with thickness less than 6 m [1]. Due to heat losses to
the overburden or understrata or both, current commercial
steam-based techniques such as Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage
(SAGD) and Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS) are not economically
feasible in thin heavy oil reservoirs (<6 m). In these processes, in
thin reservoirs, the amount of steam invested in the reservoir
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 (403) 220 5752; fax: +1 (403) 284 4852.
E-mail address: ian.gates@ucalgary.ca (I.D. Gates).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2015.03.024
0016-2361/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

versus the oil revenues renders the processes uneconomic. In cold

production (CP) processes, the only energy input is that of the
pump to move the produced uids from the reservoir to the surface; thus their energy investment is relatively small. However,
the average recovery factors of cold production processes are low
being equal to about 10% [1]. By encouraging sand production
along with oil recovery, the Cold Heavy Oil Production with Sand
(CHOPS) technique can recover as much as 15% of the OOIP [2].
In CHOPS operations, sand production creates an extensive connected wormhole network in the reservoir with zones adjacent
to the network depleted of reservoir pressure [3].
In Western Canada, after primary production, in most cases,
water ooding and polymer ooding have been the most widely

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D.W. Zhao, I.D. Gates / Fuel 153 (2015) 559568

used techniques to raise the overall recovery factor of the reservoir

[4,5]. In heavy oil reservoirs, due to the high viscosity of the oil versus that of the water, ooding processes may suffer with respect to
water bypassing [46]. In most cases, the viscosity of the live oil
ranges from 1000 to 10,000 times that of water which implies
water ngering occurs. Despite this, water ooding has been
actively applied in Saskatchewan and Alberta since it is technically
simple to implement and has relatively low operating cost even
though incremental oil recovery factors are not signicantly larger
than primary production.
Solvent-aided thermal recovery methods have also been proposed for bitumen and heavy oil reservoirs. For example, Gates
[7] examined a solvent-aided thermal recovery process for thin
oil sands reservoirs by using optimization. The optimized process
had lower net energy (both steam and solvent retained in the
reservoir) to oil ratios compared to traditional SAGD. Solvent-only
processes, such as cyclic solvent injection, have advantages in that
there are no heat losses to the surrounding overburden and understrata. These methods appear to have promise for use in postCHOPS reservoirs [8,9].
Hot water ooding is a relatively low cost thermal oil recovery
technique [9] since it only involves sensible heat. Compared with
conventional water ooding, the use of hot water improves the
mobility ratio due to a reduction of the oil phase viscosity arising
from it being heated. Furthermore, heating also reduces the interfacial tension and residual oil saturation which both lead to potentially higher recovery factor. However, in hot water ooding, the
heated water for injection delivers less heat to the reservoir compared to that with steam due to absence of latent heat and therefore it is less effective in reducing oil viscosity. On the other hand,
for thin heavy oil reservoirs, hot water ooding has advantages
over steam ooding. First, it provides larger displacement drive
than steam ooding since water viscosity is much larger than that
of steam [911]. Second, it permits the use of much higher injection pressure than steam ooding at a given temperature.
Furthermore, higher-pressure injection enables greater temperatures while remaining in the hot water state. Third, due to smaller
reservoir temperature, heat losses to the overburden and understrata will be substantially smaller than that encountered in steam
ooding. However, less heat losses to the overburden and understrata will mean less heat delivery to the heavy oil interval.
Martin et al. [10] describe the results of hot water injection into
a 57 m thick sandstone reservoir containing oil with viscosity
equal to 600 cP. They found that water injectivity and oil rates
were signicantly enhanced over that of cold water ooding.
However, although they did not have detailed thermocouple observation wells, they concluded that 60 percent of the injected heat
was lost to the overburden and understrata. Thus, there is a need
to design hot water recovery processes for thin reservoirs that
manage heat delivery and recovery to and within the reservoir.
In the study documented here, hot water-ooding strategies are
optimized by using simulated annealing, a stochastic optimization
algorithm. We aimed to understand the effects of injection pressure, water temperature, as well as different reservoir conditions
on the recovery process performance.

2. Models and methods

2.1. Reservoir simulation model
The reservoir evaluated here has properties typical of that of a
typical thin heavy oil reservoir in the Lloydminster area of
Alberta, Canada described in a previous study [12]. The base case
reservoir model is two-dimensional with two horizontal wells
spaced 50 m apart. The thickness of the heavy oil interval is equal

to 4 m thick. The models were discretized into a regular Cartesian

grid, displayed in Fig. 1, with dimensions 1 m in the cross-well
direction, 1000 m in the down-well direction (into the page) and
0.4 m in the vertical direction. The length of the perforated sections
of the horizontal wells in all models is equal to 1000 m. A commercial thermal reservoir simulator (CMG STARS) was used. The commercial thermal reservoir simulator uses the nite volume
approach. At the top and bottom boundaries, heat losses were permitted and were approximated by using Vinsome and Westervelds
[14] heat loss model. At the side boundaries of the model, no ow
and no heat transfer boundary conditions were applied.
The reservoir simulation model and uid properties are listed in
Table 1. The relative permeability curves, listed in Table 1, are
independent of temperature. The spatial distributions of oil/water
saturations (average oil saturation equal to 0.65), porosity (average
equal to 0.32), and base case horizontal permeability (average
equal to 3650 mD) are, displayed in Fig. 1(a)(c), respectively.
The average oil saturation, porosity, and horizontal permeabilities
were derived from core data taken from one of Devon Canadas
heavy oil elds located in eastern Alberta. The spatial distributions
of the porosity, oil saturation and base case permeability
(described below) were randomly assigned using uniform probability distributions. Given that the sand is relatively clean, the vertical-to-horizontal permeability ratio is set equal to 0.8. The initial
reservoir pressure and temperature are equal to 2800 kPa and
20 C, respectively. The solution gas-to-oil ratio at original reservoir conditions is equal to 6.17 m3/m3.
To investigate the effect of permeability and its variations on
the reservoir performance, ve permeability cases were optimized
(including the base case). These cases were chosen to span the
range of reservoir characteristics that are typical in thin heavy oil
reservoirs in Western Canada.
Case 1: This is the base case reservoir model with permeability
distribution as shown in Fig. 1(c). The average permeability is
equal to 3650 mD. This case represents the expected permeability
case in the study conducted here.
Case 2: In this case, a permeability distribution is created with
the same average permeability of Case 1 (3650 mD) but enhanced
permeability at the bottom and lower permeability at the upper
zone, as shown in Fig. 1(d). This vertical permeability prole would
be expected in a reservoir where the sand grains were larger in size
at the base of the reservoir with the nest grains at the top of the
reservoir.
Case 3: In this case, a permeability distribution is created with
same average permeability of Cases 1 and 2, but with higher
permeability at the upper zone and lower permeability at the
lower part of the reservoir, as displayed in Fig. 1(e). The vertical
permeability distribution of this case would be expected where
the sand grains are largest at the top of the reservoir and nest
at the base of the oil column.
Case 4: The permeability distribution for this case, shown in
Fig. 1(f), is created by scaling up the permeabilities of the gridblocks of Case 1 universally by a factor of 2. This gives rise to an
average permeability of 7300 mD. This case represents the best
permeability case examined here and is at the upper limit of
permeabilities expect in thin heavy oil reservoirs in Western
Canada.
Case 5: The permeability distribution of this case, displayed in
Fig. 1(g), is created by scaling down the permeabilities of the gridblocks of Case 1 universally by a factor equal to 0.6. This gives rise
to an average permeability equal to 2190 mD. This case represents
the worst permeability case evaluated in this study.
For each of above reservoir model cases, an individual optimization of 800 runs was conducted to determine the optimum
parameter set for each case. The optimization run and simulations
were executed on a personal computer (3.4 GHz, dual quad core

D.W. Zhao, I.D. Gates / Fuel 153 (2015) 559568

561

(a) Oil Saturation distribution (average = 0.65)

(b) Porosity distribution (average = 0.32)

(c) Base case, Case 1: horizontal permeability (mD) distribution (average = 3,650 mD)

(d) Case 2: horizontal permeability (mD) distribution enhanced permeability at bottom and
reduced permeability at top (with same overall average permeability as base case)

(e) Case 3: horizontal permeability (mD) distribution reduced permeability at bottom and
enhanced permeability at top (with same overall average permeability as base case)

(f) Case 4: horizontal permeability (mD) distribution two times the base case permeability

(g) Case 5: horizontal permeability (mD) distribution 0.6 times the base case permeability

Fig. 1. Distributions of the oil saturation, porosity, and horizontal permeability, scale in (c), of the reservoir models. The injection well is on the left side of the domain
whereas the production well is on the right side of domain. The spacing between the wells is equal to 50 m. The dimensions of the grid blocks are equal to 0.4 m and 1 m in
the vertical and horizontal directions, respectively.

with 16 GB memory). Each individual reservoir simulation took on

average 2 min and 30 s to execute; given that 800 simulation runs
were done each case, each optimization run took roughly 34 h to
complete.
2.2. Optimization algorithm
2.2.1. The simulated annealing method
In this work, a Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm is used for
operating strategy optimization as described in Gates and
Chakrabarty [15]. The optimization algorithm is designed to control the thermal reservoir simulator and execute reservoir performance evaluations. Parameters for reservoir simulation are
generated by the SA algorithm and then used for generating the
simulation input le. Then a simulation run based on the newly
generated input le is executed by the reservoir simulator. Once
the simulation is complete, a computer code is called to process
the reservoir simulation output data and evaluate the performance
of the simulated strategy. The evaluation results are then sent back

to the optimizer to generate new parameter sets and the next

iteration of the optimization algorithm starts. In the optimization
procedure, the SA algorithm conducts random searches that
attempt to lower the value of the cost function, i.e., the optimum
value of desired reservoir operating performance. The parameters
of the SA algorithm were the same as those used in previous studies [15].

2.2.2. Adjustable parameters and cost function

For optimization, the adjustable parameters are the injection
pressures and injection water temperature over specied time
intervals, summarized in Table 2. The pressure and temperature
sampled during the optimization run ensures that none of the
pressure/temperature combinations are below the steam saturation line. In other words, conditions are maintained such that
only subcooled water is injected into the reservoir. In total, ten
pressure parameters with base value of 3000 kPa and optimization
range set equal to 20004200 kPa, and ten water temperature

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D.W. Zhao, I.D. Gates / Fuel 153 (2015) 559568

Table 1
Reservoir simulation model and uid properties.

Table 2
List of optimization parameters.

Property

Value

Depth to reservoir top (m)

Net pay (m)
Porosity (dimensionless)
Oil saturation (dimensionless)
Solution gas-to-oil ratio (m3/m3)
Horizontal permeability kh (mD)
kv/kh (dimensionless)
Effective rock compressibility (1/kPa)
Rock heat capacity (kJ/m C)
Rock thermal conductivity (kJ/m day C)
Reference pressure (kPa)
Reference depth (m)
Initial reservoir temperature (C)
Dead oil viscosity (cP) 20 C
40 C
80 C
160 C
250 C
Water thermal conductivity (kJ/m day C)
Gas thermal conductivity (kJ/m day C)
Oil thermal conductivity (kJ/m day C)
Effective molecular diffusion coefcient of oil (m2/day)
Effective molecular diffusion coefcient of solvent (m2/day)
Methane K-value correlation in oil [13]
Kv1 (kPa)
K-value = (Kv1/P) exp(kv4/(T + Kv5)) Kv4 (C)
Kv5 (C)

334
4
0.32 0.02
0.65 0.09
6.17
3650 347
0.8
14  10 6
2600
660
2800
334
20
15,212
1884
125.4
9.66
3.09
53.5
5
11.5
4.32  10 6
4.32  10 5

Oilwater relative permeability curves

Gasliquid relative permeability curves

Sw
0.15
0.2000
0.2500
0.3000
0.3500
0.4000
0.4500
0.5000
0.5500
0.6000
0.6500
0.7000
0.7500
0.8000
0.8500
0.9000
0.9500
1.0000
Sl
0.1500
0.2000
0.2500
0.3000
0.3500
0.4000
0.4500
0.5000
0.5500
0.6000
0.6500
0.7000
0.7500
0.8000
0.8500
0.9000
0.9500
1.0000

krw
0.0000
0.0002
0.0016
0.0055
0.0130
0.0254
0.0440
0.0698
0.1040
0.1480
0.2040
0.2710
0.3520
0.4470
0.5590
0.6870
0.8340
1.0000
krg
1.0000
0.9500
0.8400
0.7200
0.6000
0.4700
0.3500
0.2400
0.1650
0.0930
0.0750
0.0450
0.0270
0.0200
0.0100
0.0050
0.0000
0.0000

Parameter
1

Injection well pressure

Injection well pressure

Injection well pressure

13

Injection well pressure

19

Injection well pressure

25

Injection well pressure

31

Injection well pressure

37

Injection well pressure

43

Injection well pressure

49

10

Injection well pressure

59

11

Injection water
temperature
Injection water
temperature
Injection water
temperature
Injection water
temperature
Injection water
temperature
Injection water
temperature
Injection water
temperature
Injection water
temperature
Injection water
temperature
Injection water
temperature

12
504,547
879.84
265.99
krow
0.9920
0.9790
0.9500
0.7200
0.6000
0.4700
0.3500
0.2400
0.1650
0.1100
0.0700
0.0400
0.0150
0.0000
0.0000
0.0000
0.0000
0.0000
krog
0.0000
0.0002
0.0016
0.0055
0.0130
0.0254
0.0440
0.0698
0.1040
0.1480
0.2040
0.2710
0.3520
0.4470
0.5590
0.6870
0.8340
0.9920

parameters with base value equal to 120 C and range 20250 C

are used to optimize the process.
The cost function against which the adjustable parameters are
optimized is a function of the net present value (NPV). For the simple economic model used here, the following economic factors are
considered: initial capital investment (including well drilling and
eld equipment), operating costs, xed costs, variable costs, water

Onset time
(months)

13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Base value, allowed

range

3000 kPa, 2000

4200 kPa
3000 kPa, 2000
4200 kPa
3000 kPa, 2000
4200 kPa
3000 kPa, 2000
4200 kPa
3000 kPa, 2000
4200 kPa
3000 kPa, 2000
4200 kPa
3000 kPa, 2000
4200 kPa
3000 kPa, 2000
4200 kPa
3000 kPa, 2000
4200 kPa
3000 kPa, 2000
4200 kPa
20250 C

20250 C

13

20250 C

19

20250 C

25

20250 C

31

20250 C

37

20250 C

43

20250 C

49

20250 C

59

20250 C

treatment costs, and operating revenue. The following assumptions formed the basis of our evaluation: well drilling cost and
other initial investment $2,500,000 (for a single well), discount rate
of 10%, variable cost to be 10% of the operating revenue, heavy oil
price $80.00/bbl [16], natural gas price $4.4/GJ, thermal efciency
equal to 0.75, and waste water treatment cost is $2.00/m3. The cost
function (CF) is formally dened as CF = (6  106 NPV)/1  106.
This indexes the value of the CF to range, in general, between 0
and 10 with lower values of the CF being more optimal.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Injection pressure and water temperature
Fig. 2 shows the optimized injection pressure and water temperature for all the optimized cases. For Case 1, the results reveal
that the injection pressure remains relatively high, around
4000 kPa, throughout the majority of the operating life of the process although a lower injection pressure (2500 kPa) period exists
between 1.5 and 2 years of operation. The optimized injection
pressure for all the other cases generally remains high in the
majority of the operating time before water breakthrough although
exhibit stochastic deviations. In Case 4, the high permeability zone
leads to earlier oil production compared to the other cases. The
injecting pressure remains high over the rst two years and shows
a cyclic pattern in the later stages of operation. In Case 1, the initiate water temperature is found to be around 120 C and then jump

D.W. Zhao, I.D. Gates / Fuel 153 (2015) 559568

Case 1

Case 2

Case 3

Case 4

563

Case 5

Fig. 2. Comparison of injection pressure and injection water temperature proles of the optimized strategies of Cases 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

to 225 C for a period of 6 months. After this high water temperature period follows a low injecting temperature period of 1.5 years
with water temperature ranging from 20 to 50 C. The water temperature increases to 175 C and is then further elevated to 250 C
after 3 years of operation. The 250 C injection period persists for a
year before the temperature decreases to 94 C and then nally to
20 C for the last 14 months of operation. From Fig. 2, one can see
that there is similar pattern for the optimized injecting water temperature. The water temperature normally starts high and then
gives rise to a low injection temperature period. We could call this

temperature change from high to low an injection cycle. In the 5

cases investigated here, the second cycle tends to last longer than
the rst cycle. In Case 5, a third cycle occurs within the six year
operation life.
We suggest that low injection temperature enables heat recovery from the reservoir matrix during the process which results in
higher heat efciency. During the initial period where the temperature of the injected water is relatively high, relatively high
heat is injected into the reservoir and due to heat losses to the solid
matrix, this results in an elevated matrix temperature. Only a small

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D.W. Zhao, I.D. Gates / Fuel 153 (2015) 559568

Fig. 3. Comparison of oil production rates of the optimized strategies of Cases 1, 2,

3, 4, and 5.

overall thermal efciency and heat utilization of the recovery

process.
Based on the results of the optimization runs, it is suggested
that a high injection pressure is critical to obtain feasible hot water
ooding strategies. Essentially, high injection pressure promotes
rapid uid movement within the oil reservoir which enhances convective delivery of heat to the formation leading to a greater fraction of the heat being delivered to the oil than would be the case
for low-pressure injection and low injection rate where conductive
losses to the overburden and understrata would dominate heat
transfer. Similar to the results for optimized SAGD operation as
shown by Gates et al. [17], the optimized process promotes horizontal heat transfer over that of vertical heat transfer. In the context of hot water ooding, this is done within the constraint of
hot water breakthrough to reduce direct hot water production
from the reservoir. For hot water injection, the results demonstrate
that it is most thermally efcient to adopt a cyclic pattern control,
i.e. start at high water temperature and end at low water temperature. Multiple cycles might be benecial depending on the reservoir condition.
3.2. Oil production rates and effects of permeability variations

Table 3
Comparison of optimized operating strategies in all the four cases in terms of
cumulative oil production, cumulative water produced to oil produced ratio (cWOR),
cumulative energy injected to oil ratio (cEOR), operating time and net present value
(NPV).
Case

Cumulative oil
production (m3)

cWOR (m3/
m3)

cEOR (GJ/
m3)

1
2
3
4
5

24,366
26,400
25,655
27,319
5396

14.5
14.6
13.5
19.1
13.7

6.2
9.9
8.2
7.4
3.4

NPV*
($million)
2.8
2.9
2.9
4.7
1.6

*
The blowdown performance is not considered in the NPV calculation which
means the real NPV could be slightly higher than the presented values.

fraction of the injected heat is produced with the produced uids.

Due to the small thickness of the reservoir pay zone, a signicant
fraction of the heat is lost to the overburden and understrata.
After the hot water injection period, subsequent water injection
at lower temperature enables heat recovery from the reservoir
matrix, that is, heat is transferred from reservoir rock to water
and mobile oil. Furthermore, since the injection temperature is
lower than that of the overburden and understrata, heat recovery
also occurs from these zones to the reservoir thus improving the

Fig. 3 shows the oil production rates for Cases 15. The peak oil
production rates are found to range from 20 to 25 m3/day for Cases
14. In Case 5, the maximum oil rate seldom exceeds 5 m3/day. The
results show that despite the same average permeability value, the
distribution of the permeability within the pay zone impacts oil
production. In Case 2, a higher permeability zone is located at
the bottom zone of the reservoir. This results in earlier oil production than that of Case 3, the case where a higher permeability zone
is located at the upper part of the reservoir. The higher permeability at the lower part of the reservoir causes faster hot water frontal
advance in the lower part of the reservoir. This enhances heat
transfer (tends to migrate upwards rather than downwards) to
the oil above the higher permeability zone at the base of the reservoir. Furthermore, the accelerated water front speed leads to more
oil displacement and production. As listed in Table 3, within the
same operating time of 6 years, Case 2 produced 3% more oil than
Case 3. On the other hand, 11% more water is produced in the optimized Case 2, which is caused by the higher permeability of the
lower region of pay zone. Case 3 produces 5% more oil than Case
1 but used 40% more heat injection over the total 6 years of operation. The higher permeability interval at the upper part of reservoir
contributes to larger heat losses to the overburden.

(a) after 12 months

(b) after 36 months

(c) after 60 months

Fig. 4. Oil saturation proles of optimized Case 1.

D.W. Zhao, I.D. Gates / Fuel 153 (2015) 559568

565

Case 1

Case 2

Case 3

Case 4

Case 5

Fig. 5. Oil saturation distributions after 4 years of operation for Cases 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

In addition to the effects of the spatial permeability distribution, the absolute average permeability value also impacts
oil production. As shown in Fig. 3, the highest permeability case,
Case 4, results in the highest oil production of all cases in the shortest time. On the other hand, the lowest permeability case, Case 5,
has the lowest cumulative oil production of all cases, only
5396 m3 versus 24,366 m3 for Case 1. It should be pointed out that
higher permeability also leads to higher water injection and consequent production.
Fig. 4 shows the oil saturation distributions after 12, 36, and
60 months of operations for the optimized Case 1. The conformance zone created by hot water ooding is relatively high due
to the thinness of the pay zone. The water front advances faster
in the lower part of the reservoir with evidence of water ngering.
Fig. 5 shows the oil saturation distributions of all optimized cases
after 4 years of operation. In Case 2, as shown in Fig. 5b, due to
higher permeability at the lower part of the reservoir, the water
front moves much faster in the lower part and breaks through at
an early time which lead to overall higher water cut. In Case 3,
as shown in Fig. 5c, the advance of the water front is relatively uniform in the pay zone. In Case 4, the high permeability is found to
result in lowest oil saturation after 4 years of operation (Fig. 5d).
However, in Case 5 (Fig. 5e), due to the low permeability, the water
front moves at a relatively slow pace which resulted in the lowest
oil production.
3.3. Water injection rates and water production
The water injection rates in all the optimized cases are shown in
Fig. 6. For Cases 13, the initial water injection rates are generally
low in the early stages of oil production but ramp up as the operation continues. Since the injection temperature drops as the operations progress, at the later stage of hot water ooding, water
breakthrough does not cause substantial heat losses since lower

Fig. 6. Water injection rates of the optimized strategies of Cases 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

temperature water is injected. In Case 5, due to the low injectivity

determined by the low permeability, the water injection rates are
low and thus the oil production rate is relatively low.
Fig. 7 shows the water cut of all of the cases studied here. The
water cuts are generally larger than 80%. At the later stages, water
cuts rise to above 95%. In Case 4 where reservoir has the largest
permeability, the water cut rises to 99% by the end of the 6 years
of operation.
3.4. Temperature distributions, cumulative energy injected to oil ratio
(cEOR), and net present value
Fig. 8 presents the spatial distributions of the temperature after
12, 36, and 60 months of operation in the optimized Case 1. Figs. 9

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D.W. Zhao, I.D. Gates / Fuel 153 (2015) 559568

Fig. 7. Water cut of the optimized strategies of Cases 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

12 present the temperature distributions after 12, 36, and

60 months in optimized Cases 25. In Case 1, the reservoir temperature peaks at about 100 C by the end of high temperature water
injection period (at the end of 4 years of operation). Due to the
use of cold water for injection, the temperature of the ooded zone
starts to decrease and declines to about 50 C. In Cases 24, the

maximum reservoir temperatures during hot waterooding were

found to be in the range between 107 and 120 C whereas the nal
temperature of the ooded zone was between 50 and 75 C. In Case
5, due to low permeability and therefore low injectivity, the average
reservoir temperature never exceeded 30 C. In Cases 14, the overall reservoir temperature prole versus time reects heat recovery
from reservoir matrix sequestered there during hot water injection
and recovered during colder water injection.
The cumulative energy injected (as sensible heat in the injected
water) to produced oil ratio (cEOR, expressed as GJ injected energy
per m3 of oil produced) versus time for all the cases is displayed in
Fig. 14 with results at the end of the six years of operation listed in
Table 3. The cEOR generally starts high due to heat losses and initial low oil production rate. As the oil rate increases, the cEOR
decreases. By the end of the high oil production rate period, the
cEOR increases until cold-water injection is started which then
recovers heat previously stored in the reservoir matrix. In Case 1,
the resulting cEOR is equal to 6.2 GJ/m3, being the lowest value
excluding Case 5. In Case 2, the existence of the high permeability
layer in the lower part of reservoir results in relatively early water
break through and therefore greater energy injection, more heat
losses to overburden, a higher overall reservoir temperature
(Fig. 13), and the highest cEOR equal to 9.9 GJ/m3. Case 5 achieved
the lowest cEOR but also resulted in the lowest production rate and
recovered oil volume and therefore had a negative net present

(a) After 12 months of operation

(b) After 36 months of operation

(c) After 60 months of operation

Fig. 8. Temperature (C) distributions of optimized Case 1.

(a) After 12 months of operation

(b) After 36 months of operation

(c) After 60 months of operation

Fig. 9. Temperature (C) distributions of optimized Case 2.

D.W. Zhao, I.D. Gates / Fuel 153 (2015) 559568

567

(a) After 12 months of operation

(b) After 36 months of operation

(c) After 60 months of operation

Fig. 10. Temperature (C) distributions of optimized Case 3.

(a) After 12 months of operation

(b) After 36 months of operation

(c) After 60 months of operation

Fig. 11. Temperature (C) distributions of optimized Case 4.

(a) After 12 months of operation

(b) After 36 months of operation

(c) After 60 months of operation

Fig. 12. Temperature (C) distributions of optimized Case 5.

value (NPV). This result suggests that heat losses were reduced in
the low permeability case but oil production suffers resulting in an
uneconomic process. Of the ve cases studied, the resulting overall
cEOR after six years of operation is under 10 GJ/m3, which indicates

relatively good heat utilization efciency. The calculated

reveals that hot water ooding, with the economic inputs
here, can be economic in thin (<6 m) heavy oil reservoirs
the base case (Case 1) properties and that high and

NPV
used
with
low

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D.W. Zhao, I.D. Gates / Fuel 153 (2015) 559568

Fig. 13. Average reservoir temperature as function of operating time in optimized

Cases 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

efciency of the process. Multiple cycles of high/low temperature water injection might be benecial depending on the reservoir condition.
 The permeability distribution is found to affect the performance
of the hot water ooding process. The existence of higher
permeability zone at the lower part of the reservoir leads to earlier oil production and water breakthrough. The higher injectivity and water production also caused higher cEOR. The
performance of Case 3, which has higher permeability zone at
upper part of the reservoir, is comparable to that of the Case 1
but it used 40% more heat injection.
 The absolute overall permeability of the reservoir impacts performance signicantly. Case 4 produced the largest amount of
oil and water in the early stage of operation. Although Case
4s produced water-to-oil is also substantially higher than the
other cases, it achieved the best economic performance. The
low permeability of Case 5 led to slow oil production.
Although it has the lowest cEOR, the poor oil production made
the operation process uneconomic.

Acknowledgements
Acknowledgement is extended to the Petroleum Technology
Research Centre (PTRC) for their nancial support and the
University of Calgary for providing nancial and logistical support
as well as Computer Modelling Group for the use of its thermal
reservoir simulator, STARSTM.
References

Fig. 14. Cumulative energy injected to oil ratio (cEOR) of optimized Cases 1, 2, 3, 4,
and 5.

permeability zones at the top or bottom of the reservoir realize

similar NPV providing the overall permeability is similar. The
results show that Case 4 achieved the best economic outcome of
the cases studied here this is a result of its enhanced
permeability.
4. Conclusions
In the present work, stochastic optimization was conducted to
determine the optimum injecting pressure and injecting water
temperature strategies in thin heavy oil reservoir in ve cases.
The key results are as follows.
 A high injecting pressure is critical to a success hot water ooding strategy. In the present optimized cases, the injection pressures remain high during the operating process although
deviations present. This promotes larger horizontal heat transfer (convective) than vertical heat losses (vertical losses
adversely impact process performance due to heat losses to
non-productive overburden and understrata).
 For water injection, the results suggest that starting with high
temperature injection to lower temperature injection later on
provides opportunities to recover heat from the reservoir and
overburden and understrata thus improving the thermal

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