Paper: Design Aspects of Thermal Recovery Projects

Ten years age the name "Thermal Recovery" was usually applied to the forward combustion oil recovery process. Today, so many variations of oil reservoir heating methods have been proposed and tested that "Thermal Recovery" now has a far more general meaning. Any oil recovery process which depends upon application of heat to a reservoir is a thermal recovery process. This classification includes: (1) production well heating, (2) both forward and reverse combustion, (3) continuous hot-fluid injection (such as a steam or hot-water injection, (4) intermittent hot fluid injection (such as the push-pull steam injection), (5) use of nuclear devices, (6) electrolinking or electrocarbonization. . . It is the purpose of this paper to summarize sources of design information available for these thermal recovery processes.