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Characteristics of Formation Damage and
Variations of Reservoir Properties during
Steam Injection in Heavy Oil Reservoir
Z.-X. Pang
a

b
, H.-Q. Liu
a
& X.-L. Liu
b
a
MOE Key Laboratory of Petroleum Engineering, Faculty of
Petroleum Engineering , China University of PetroleumBeijing ,
Beijing, China
b
Research Center of Post-doctor, Liaohe Oilfield, CNPC, Panjin ,
Liaoning, China
Published online: 23 Feb 2010.
To cite this article: Z.-X. Pang , H.-Q. Liu & X.-L. Liu (2010) Characteristics of Formation Damage and
Variations of Reservoir Properties during Steam Injection in Heavy Oil Reservoir, Petroleum Science
and Technology, 28:5, 477-493, DOI: 10.1080/10916460902780335
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10916460902780335
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Petroleum Science and Technology, 28:477493, 2010
Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1091-6466 print/1532-2459 online
DOI: 10.1080/10916460902780335
Characteristics of Formation Damage and
Variations of Reservoir Properties during Steam
Injection in Heavy Oil Reservoir
Z.-X. PANG,
1;2
H.-Q. LIU,
1
AND X.-L. LIU
2
1
MOE Key Laboratory of Petroleum Engineering, Faculty of Petroleum
Engineering, China University of PetroleumBeijing, Beijing, China
2
Research Center of Post-doctor, Liaohe Oileld, CNPC, Panjin,
Liaoning, China
Abstract Steam stimulation and steam ooding are two kinds of effective processes
of enhanced oil recovery for a heavy oil reservoir. But steam can lead to severe
and permanent formation damage due to interactions between injected uids and
reservoir rock and liquids. This article presents the laboratory studies undertaken
to evaluate the inuence of uid composition, temperature, salinity, pH, dissolution
and transformation of minerals, and asphalt deposition on formation damage during
steam injection. The degree of damage during steam injection is observed to be
dependent on pH and temperature. The technology of casting samples micrographs
and scanning electron micrographs is employed to study the variations of reservoir
properties after steam injection in each experiment. The mechanisms of formation
damage and the characteristics of reservoir property variations are analyzed in heavy
oil reservoirs during steam stimulation or steam ooding. The results show that the
solubilities of rock and clay increase with increasing temperature and pH. Formation
pores are blocked and plugged due to migration and precipitation of new minerals
and asphalt deposition away from the steam injection well due to temperature drop
and pH reduction in reservoirs. A great deal of asphalt deposition alters formation
wettability to increase seepage resistance. Average porosity and average permeability
increase near the steam injection well due to the generation of earthworm holes and
steam channeling zones under the effect of high pH and elevated temperature. But a
large amount of crude oil is left in large and mid-size pores during steam injection
in heavy oil reservoirs.
Keywords asphalt deposition, formation damage, heavy oil reservoir, high temper-
ature, mineral dissolution, pH, steam
1. Introduction
Steam stimulation and steam ooding are proven as two effective oil recovery techniques
widely applied to heavy oil reservoirs. But steam injection in heavy oil reservoirs results
in sharp waterrock and waterliquid reactions, which can decrease production potential
by reducing permeability and porosity (Reed, 1980; McCorriston et al., 1981; Mohnot
et al., 1984; Okoye et al., 1991; Bennion, 1999; Hongfu et al., 2002). Steam and hot water
from the steam generator often have pH values above 12 and low ionic content. Injection
of efuents from the steam generator into the reservoir causes many formation damages,
Address correspondence to Zhan-Xi Pang, MOE Key Laboratory of Petroleum Engineering,
Faculty of Petroleum Engineering, China University of PetroleumBeijing, 18 Fuxue Road,
Changping, Beijing 102249, China. E-mail: pxiad9827@163.com
477
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478 Z.-X. Pang et al.
such as expansion and dispersion of water-sensitive clays, solubilization of silica and
clay minerals, composition variations of crude oil, and asphalt deposition. These damages
may cause reduction of permeability and porosity and wettability reversion in reservoir to
lower producing potential of petroleum (Gruesbeck and Collins, 1982; Leonataritis and
Mansoori, 1988; Okoye et al., 1990; Baudracco and Aoubouazza, 1995; Diabira et al.,
2001; Schembre and Kovscek, 2004).
Okoye et al. (1990) conducted a series of experimental research on various steam
temperatures and pH values inuencing formation damage in heavy oil reservoirs. McCor-
riston and his colleagues (1981) conducted an experiment of formation damage in heavy
oil reservoirs and observed that alkaline boiler efuents irreversibly reduced the perme-
ability of cores by up to 70%, dispersed clays, and solubilized quartz grains. Reed (1981),
studied formation sandstone dissolution during steam injection in his earlier laboratory.
Krauskopf and Bird (1967) reported that quartz and other siliceous minerals had very low
solubility at room temperature, but at elevated temperatures solubility increased sharply.
Some studies found the fact that injection of water with different composition and
lower salinity than formation water could cause dispersion of particles, expansion, and
transformation of clay (Gruesbeck and Collins, 1982; Bennion and Thomas, 1992; Hajdo
and Clayton, 1994; Schembre and Kovscek, 2004; Zeng et al., 2007). Mohnot et al. (1984)
observed that alkaline chemicals could cause clay migration and swelling, leading to
permeability reduction. Vaidya (1991) studied the mechanisms responsible for the release
of ne particles. His work, at room temperature, showed that low salinity and high pH
could cause a release of nes.
A few studies in the literature addressed the formation of scales and precipitates at
the injection and production wells in steam stimulation or drive processes (Gruesbeck
and Collins, 1982; Babagagli and Al-Bemani, 2007). Amaefule et al. (1984) mentioned
briey in their paper on fundamentals of alkaline ooding that plugging and scaling were
observed in eld-test production wells.
Several researchers thought that the crude oil composition and the presence of min-
erals affected alteration of the crude oil properties, in situ formation of stable emulsions,
and rock wettability (Clark et al., 1983; Leonataritis and Mansoori, 1988; Hongfu et al.,
2002). Aqueous uids interacted strongly with sandstones at elevated temperatures, which
produced formation damage related to dissolution and precipitation of minerals (Amaefule
et al., 1984; Pahlavan and Raqul, 1985). But the presence of crude oil affected the
rate and amount of this chemical interaction. Additionally, if the crude oil had small
but important amounts of organics acids, these could react with the alkaline solutions
to produce in situ surface-active compounds. These surfactants were adsorbed on rock
surfaces and changed the wettability of reservoir rocks.
However, there are few studies on the interactions of temperature, salinity, pH,
plugging and migration of new minerals, asphalt deposits, and wettability reversion. The
interactions between uid and rock surface, which are the dominant reasons for formation
damage, depend on the mineralogy of the porous medium, concentration, temperature,
and chemical composition of the uids.
2. Experiments
2.1. Mineral Samples
The experiments are designed to validate the effects, such as temperature, pH, salinity,
dissolution and migration of minerals, asphalt deposits, and wettability reversion, on
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Steam Injection in a Heavy Oil Reservoir 479
formation damages of steam injection. The rock samples were obtained from two wells
in Henan Oileld. The deposits of Henan heavy oil reservoir are contained in rela-
tively shallow geological formations composed largely of quartz sands with feldspars,
clay minerals, and other trace minerals. Clay minerals occur interbedded in the sand
as pore llers and grain coatings. The depth of the wells is about 200300 m. The
samples from the wells were observed by thin section scanning electron microscope
analysis to study the variations of reservoir properties after steam injection. Dissolution
of rock grains and clay minerals occurred due to waterrock reaction when a large
amount of steam at high pressure and elevated temperature were injected into heavy oil
reservoirs.
Solubility studies of rock grains were carried out in a high-pressure and elevated
temperature oven. The rock samples employed in experiments were unconsolidated oil
sands from Well G51310 in Gucheng Oileld. The solubility of rock grains removed clays
were measured under the conditions of thermal recovery. In clay solubility experiments
clay samples were separated from rock grains according to sedimentation methods for
unconsolidated sands from Well L1819 in Jinglou Oileld. A gram of clay minerals was
put into a sealed container at high pressure and elevated temperature to measure the
solubility of clay.
2.2. Fluid Samples
Water samples were used in experiments from heavy oil reservoirs in Henan Oileld.
The analysis of formation water indicates that it contains high concentration bicarbonate,
which is incompatible with the efuents from steam generator. Salinity of formation water
was from 2,000 to 8,000 mg/L. The cations were mainly K
C
and Na
C
, but the contents
of Ca
2C
and Mg
2C
were low in formation water. Cl

and HCO

3
were the primary anions
but SO
2
4
and CO
2
3
were relatively poor in formation water.
Steam injection can cause variations of petroleum compositions, such as light hy-
drocarbon reduction, heavy hydrocarbon addition, parafn wax scales, and asphalt pre-
cipitation, to plug production wells. Fluorescence analysis of oil components was carried
out to compare oil samples from steam swept formations with oil samples from steam
unswept ones in order to study variations of petroleum compositions after injection
steam. The oil samples were dead oil obtained from Well G51310 of Gucheng Oileld
in Henan.
2.3. Experimental Setup and Procedure
Some experiments were carried out in a high pressure and temperature oven to analyze
solubility of rock grains and clay minerals. A schematic diagram of the oven is shown
in Figure 1. The oven can simulate thermal conditions of elevated temperature (350

C)
and high pressure (10 MPa).
Scanning electron micrographs and a petrographic study of rock and clay minerals
before and after experiments were made. A thin section of each sample was dried
and then coated with a thin layer of aluminum. Scanning electron microscopy was
then performed to observe pore geometry, crystal morphology, and asphalt deposition
under high magnication. X-ray diffraction analysis of rock and clay minerals and oil
content was also performed on some samples after injecting high-temperature steam to
obtain some qualitative information on mineral or oil distributions. The laws of clay
transformation are summarized according to the analysis of experimental results.
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Figure 1. The schematic diagram of solubility experiment.
3. Results
3.1. Dissolution of Rock Grains
In order to evaluate dissolution of rock grains during high-pH steam injection, nine
experiments involving different pH solutions were conducted at 100

C, 200

C, and
300

C. The experimental pressure was maintained at 6 MPa in the high-pressure and

temperature oven. Each experiment was carried out for 48 hr for a certain temperature
and pH under 6 MPa. Experimental results in Table 1 show that solubility of rock grains
gradually increases with increasing pH of solution at a certain temperature and the same
results are seen for increasing temperature at a certain pH. A liter of solution with pH 13.0
can dissolve 11,580-mg rock grains at 300

C, but the solution of pH 8.0 only dissolves

Table 1
Solubility of unconsolidated rock grains at different temperature and pH
Core
sample
Pressure,
MPa
Temperature,

C
pH of
pre-
experiment
Time,
hr
Solubility,
mg/L
pH of
post-
experiment
G-100-8 6 100 8.0 48 913 7.5
G-100-10 6 100 10.0 48 823 9.5
G-100-13 6 100 13.0 48 1,333 12.0
G-200-8 6 200 8.0 48 2,157 7.5
G-200-10 6 200 10.0 48 1,270 9.5
G-200-13 6 200 13.0 48 12,660 12.0
G-300-8 6 300 8.0 48 1,893 7.5
G-300-10 6 300 10.0 48 880 9.5
G-300-13 6 300 13.0 48 11,580 12.0
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Steam Injection in a Heavy Oil Reservoir 481
913-mg rock grains at 100

C. The injected water (100

C) with pH 8.0 would dissolve

only 7.9% of rock grains as injected water (300

C) with pH 13.0. Therefore, high pH

causes a great amount of rock minerals dissolution and subsequent precipitation of new
particles away from the steam injection well in reservoirs. The experimental results show
that the pH of injected steam should be maintained at about 9. Rock dissolution seriously
changes reservoir properties and pore structures to produce sharp formation damage. The
phenomena of rock dissolution mainly occurs near the wellbore of steam injection, so
formation rock becomes more unconsolidated at elevated temperature and high pH to
result in sand production and even formation collapse. Meanwhile, dissolved minerals
will crystallize new grains or combine with other components to form new minerals away
from the steam injection well due to the reduction of temperature and pH in formation.
3.2. Dissolution of Clay Minerals
Solubility of clay minerals was measured in order to evaluate the inuence of temperature
and pH on dissolution of clay. The pressure was maintained 6 MPa in the oven. The
temperature was respectively controlled at 150

C, 200

C, 250

C, and 300

C. Solution
pH was respectively maintained ay 8.0, 9.0, 10.0, 11.0, and 13.0 in each experiment. Sol-
ubility of clay minerals gradually increased with increasing solution pH and temperature
as shown in Figure 2. The maximal solubility was 5,383.8 mg/L at pH 13.0 and 300

C
and the minimal solubility was only 1,886.7 mg/L at pH 8.0 and 150

C. Composition
analysis shows that the main component was SiO
2
in solution, accounting for 76.1% of
total soluble amount, and the other components were, respectively, CaO, K
2
O, Al
2
O
3
,
FeO, and MgO in solution, accounting for less than 10%. This indicates that increasing
temperature and alkali concentration generally increase the dissolution process, whereas
the precipitation of mineral crystals will be accelerated at low temperatures and pH,
leading to plugging pore-throats away from the steam injection well.
3.3. Transformation of Clay Minerals
3.3.1. Transformation of Illite. Illite is a kind of stable mineral in reservoirs. Illite is not
easily dissolved in water and it is difcult to transform to the other minerals, especially in
enriched Na
C
solution when the temperature is less than 250

C. But if the temperature is

Figure 2. The effect of temperature and pH on solubility of clay minerals.
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482 Z.-X. Pang et al.
more than 250

C and the pH of solution with enriched Na

C
or K
C
is more than 11, then
solubility of feldspar increases to make a lot of magnalite transform to illite at elevated
temperature under strong alkaline conditions.
magnalite CK
C
!illite=magnalite mixed layer !illite
The content of potassium feldspar is basically constant in formation. But illite
gradually transforms to magnalite at low temperature in poor alkaline solutions that
contain enough Na
C
, Ca
2C
, and Mg
2C
but lack K
C
.
illite CNa
C
.Ca
2C
=Mg
2C
/ CSiO
2
CH
2
O !magnalite CK
C
3.3.2. Transformation of Kaolinite. Kaolinite is very unstable in strong alkaline solu-
tion. In general, kaolinite begins to dissolve in water at 150

C and pH of 11 and it
entirely dissolves when temperature is above 250

C and pH is over 11.

Na
C
.Ca
2C
/ Ckaolinite CH
4
SiO
4
!magnalite CH
2
O CH
C
3.3.3. Transformation of Magnalite. In addition, magnalite is not stable at high pH and
elevated temperature. Magnalite will transform to illite at 350

C in solution of KOH and

KHCO
3
with pH above 11. X-ray diffraction analysis shows that after steam injection
magnalite disappears and the content of illite obviously increases in Well Loujian 1.
3.4. Generation of Neogenic Minerals
Scanning electron micrographs for various high temperatures show the production of
cubicites as shown in Figure 3. When temperature is above 200

C, cubicite begins to
generate in the experiments. The grain size of cubicite is about 1020 m. The amount
of generated cubicite is 4.48.2% in pH range of 810, but the amount increases to 24%
if pH goes to 13. Therefore, rock is greatly dissolved near the steam injection well where
a large amount of zeolite minerals generate due to injected steam of high pH and elevated
temperature.
Magnalite transforms to kaolinite in acidic solution but can transform to illite in
enriched K
C
alkaline solution. When Na
C
concentration is high enough in solution,
magnalite absorbs Na
C
to present strong expansibility in formation. Therefore, if Na
C
is
enriched in the reservoir during steam injection, then Ca
2C
and Mg
2C
in magnalite are
easily replaced by Na
C
to increase the degree of formation damage.
3.5. Scales and Precipitations of Minerals
The feed water into the steam generator is alkalescent (pH of 7.84), but the efuents from
the steam generator are strongly caustic (pH of 11.42). After the efuents are injected into
formation, the pH gradually decreases as the cycles of steam stimulation increase. The
efuents tend to neutral or alkalescent uid nally as listed in Table 2. Those processes
show that the efuents of high pH are injected into formation to trigger violent water
rock and waterliquid reactions. Waterrock reactions make quartz, feldspar, and the other
minerals be dissolved in water. Waterliquid reactions prompt a great amount of anions
and cations to combine new minerals in formation. During thermal recovery in heavy oil
reservoirs, a great deal of alkalic steam and hot water are injected into formation and they
contact rock and uid in reservoirs to seriously decrease seepage ability of formation.
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Steam Injection in a Heavy Oil Reservoir 483
Figure 3. Scanning electron micrographs of neogenic minerals.
The depositions of CaCO
3
lead to plug the narrow pores or pore-throats due to the
reactions between injection uid and reservoir minerals during injection steam. Because
injection uid contains Co
2
3
and reservoir minerals contains enough Ca
2C
.
3.6. Deposition and Cementation of Asphalt
In order to analyze the mechanisms of formation damage from deposition and cementation
of asphalt during steam injection, scanning electron micrographs were taken to observe
the thin section micrographs of asphalt in solution and the casting sample micrographs
of asphalt in pores at high temperatures.
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Table 2
The analysis of feed water, efuents, and production water
Position of sampling
Composition
Inlet of steam
generator
Outlet of steam
generator
Well
11119
Well
1723
pH 7.84 11.42 8.45 7.21
Na
C
80.00 155.00 369.00 1,238.00
K
C
7.60 11.70 16.50 60.50
Ca
C
1.00 0.00 1.50 26.00
Mg
2
0.50 0.00 0.50 6.00
Al
3C
0.08 0.56 1.60 3.40
Cl

37.00 64.00 469.00 1,751.00

SO
2
4
19.60 43.00 46.00 28.00
HCO

3
149.00 0.00 137.00 506.00
CO
2
3
0.00 58.90 13.00 0.00
OH

0.00 44.00 0.00 0.00

SiO
2
0.90 2.00 15.00 6.50
CO
2
2.55 0.00 0.00 8.10
Suspended particles 0.10 0.10 248.50 95.00
Filtered solids 298.10 386.00 1,104.90 3,269.50
Total amount of
residuals
299.00 387.50 1,353.50 3,694.90
Total salinity 296.01 380.01 1,070.35 3,626.10
Steam injection produces hydrothermal reactions to result in a large amount of
separated asphalt particles connecting each other in liquid phase. Separated asphalt
deposition generates serious damage for petroleum production during injection steam due
to asphalt depositing to plug the formation, resulting in productivity declining greatly. In
general, asphalt in solution is in three basic types as shown in Figure 4.
1. Separated asphalt of 110 m in diameter, which are some scattered pelletoidal
particles in solution.
2. Flocculent asphalt, which has strong cohesive force to combine with many separated
asphalt particles and can freely ow in formations of lm, micelle, and sponge in
solution.
3. Block asphalt above 10100 m in diameter, which combines many separated asphalt
particles together to present irregular shapes, such as branch, net, block, to pack rock
grains.
Asphalt particles can precipitate on the surface of pores to plug pore-throats and
even reverse wettability of rock surface in reservoirs. Some tests of thin casting sample
were conducted at various temperatures in order to observe the characteristics of asphalt
deposition in pores. Irreducible oil in cores is dissolved by benzene solution. The residual
matters are only asphalt and colloid in pores. A thin section of each sample was dried
and then coated with a thin layer of metal. Microphotographs of asphalt in pores were
taken to observe its distributions under high magnication as shown in Figure 5. The
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Steam Injection in a Heavy Oil Reservoir 485
Figure 4. Asphalt distribution in solution at different temperatures.
results show that asphalt is present in three basic types in cores as follows:
1. Point distribution asphalt mainly generated at 50

C100

C, which damages reservoir

properties slightly due to its dispersion and low quantity in pores.
2. Patch distribution asphalt mainly generating at 150

C200

C, which damages reser-

voir properties heavily due to some larger block and ake asphalt associating with
point asphalt to plug narrow pore-throats in cores.
3. Net distribution asphalt mainly generating at 250

C300

C, which damages reservoir

properties variously due to continuous distribution of large block asphalt plugging
pore-throat and packing rock grains to cause wettability reversal.
Asphalt cementation in solution and asphalt adsorption on pore surface generate
complex asphalt deposition to largely damage formation. The damage reasons from
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486 Z.-X. Pang et al.
Figure 5. Asphalt deposition of thin casting sample micrographs in pores.
asphalt deposition mainly include asphalt plugging narrow pore-throats, asphalt attaching
to rock surface causing wettability reversal, water-in-oil emulsion generation increasing
seepage resistance.
3.7. Composition Variation of Oil
The study is based on the determination of the effects of high-temperature steam on
composition variation of heavy oil in formations during steam injection. The results
of composition variation in steam unswept region and swept formation in Well J503
are listed in Table 3. It can be seen from the experimental results that the content of
light hydrocarbon obviously decreases but the content of heavy hydrocarbon and asphalt
largely increases in steam swept formation during steam injection.
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Steam Injection in a Heavy Oil Reservoir 487
Table 3
The analysis of petroleum compositions
Component content, %
Well
name
Depth,
m
Formation
conditions
Saturated
hydrocarbon
Aromatic
hydrocarbon Nonhydrocarbon Asphaltenes
J503 279.0284.0 Unswept 50.46 15.51 25.00 5.79
J503 284.0288.05 Swept 32.47 12.69 21.94 23.66
4. Discussion of Results
4.1. Variation of Porosity Near Steam Injection Well
In initial reservoir or steam unswept formation, there are the following four basic pore
types:
1. Intergranular pores of 100300 m in diameter, which are the main storage space of
heavy oil occupying 6070% of the whole pore volume in reservoirs.
2. Corrosion pores with irregular shapes, which include intergranular corrosion pore, in-
traparticle corrosion pore, and intergranular corrosion fracture resulting from selective
corrosion of minerals occupying 1015% of whole pore volume in reservoirs.
3. Few microfractures, which are important to interconnect different pores resulting from
rock grains breakage and intergranular slippage.
4. Micropores less than 2 m in diameter, which widely distribute in clay minerals and
other trace minerals.
A kind of new pore called an earthworm hole was generated through interactions
of steam and minerals. The holes are well communicated, clean, wide, winding, and
long in steam swept formations. They can be directly observed by the scanning electron
micrographs of steam swept cores in Well J301, Well J503, and Well Loujian 1 as shown
in Figure 6. After a great amount of steam of elevated temperature, high pressure, and
high pH is injected into heavy oil reservoirs, earthworm holes are generated by three
combined actions. The actions respectively are shown as follows:
1. Strong ooding by steam at elevated temperature and high pressure.
2. Dissolution of rock grains by high pH of alkaline solution.
3. Entrainment of unconsolidated particles by heavy oil during steam stimulation.
Once the earthworm holes connect with each other among wells during steam
stimulation, serious steam channeling will happen. The main reason for frequent steam
channeling is from the communication of earthworm holes in reservoir during multicycles
of steam stimulation.
The diagrams of porosity distribution frequency of preinjection steam and postinjec-
tion steam are shown in Figures 7 and 8. Figure 7 shows that the maximal porosities are
around 36 and 38% in the initial reservoir; after steam injection the maximal porosities
are around 40 and 42% near the steam injection well as shown in Figure 8. Therefore,
reservoir porosity gradually increases after steam stimulation near the steam injection
well.
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Figure 6. Pore types of scanning electron micrographs.
4.2. Variation of Permeability Near the Steam Injection Well
Permeability distributions of preinjection steam are shown in Figure 9. The results show
that the distributions of permeability present two main peak values, such as 0.40.8 and
1.62.0 m
2
, before steam is injected into the reservoir. Figure 10 describes permeability
distributions of postinjection steam. The distributions of permeability present multipeak
values, but the top distribution frequency corresponding to 0.40.8 m
2
decreases from
51% of preinjection steam to 22% of postinjection steam. The second distribution fre-
quency obviously moves from 1.62.0 m
2
of preinjection steam to 2.83.0 m
2
of
postinjection steam. Meanwhile, many other peak values are more than 2.0 m
2
after
steam injection. The two gures show that permeability variations lead to the generation
of large pores and channeling fractures due to ne migration, rock grain dissolution, and
clay mineral dissolution and transformation during steam injection.
4.3. Variation of Oil Saturation during Steam Injection
Figure 11 presents thin section micrographs that show general views of pore distribution
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Steam Injection in a Heavy Oil Reservoir 489
Figure 7. The distribution frequency of porosity in the initial reservoir.
and oil content in steam unswept and swept formations. Thin section analysis gives the
relationships between pore size and oil content as shown in Table 4.
1. The quantity of large pores (diameters more than 100 m) is low but the oil content
is over 90%. Large pores containing oil decrease 4.910.7% comparing steam swept
formations with in unswept formations. So a large amount of heavy oil is recovered
from these pores by steam.
2. The quantity of middle pores (diameters between from 20 to 100 m) decreases 4.4
7.5% in steam swept formations. But heavy oil content in these pores is less than
10%.
3. Small pores (diameters less than 20 m) are greatest in formation but their oil content
is less than 1%.
Figure 8. The distribution frequency of porosity in steam swept formation.
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Figure 9. The distribution frequency of permeability in the initial reservoir.
4.4. Mechanisms on Formation Damage of Steam Injection
The primary mechanisms of formation damages of steam injection include clay expansion,
mineral transformation, migration and precipitation of particles, asphalt deposition, and wet-
tability reversion. Based on the experiments the following mechanisms can be summarized:
1. Hydrating expansion of clay minerals leads to reduction of porosity and permeability
to increase seepage resistance of reservoir uids.
2. Dissolution and transformation of rock and clay minerals during steam injection
promote the degree of formation damage.
3. The generation of earthworm holes from grain migration, precipitation, and plugging
causes serious sand production to accelerate formation damages.
4. Depositions of asphalt and heavy components in heavy oil plug pore-throats in porous
media.
5. Wettability reversion of formation during steam injection increases seepage resistance
of uids and makes a great amount of heavy oil immobile in reservoir.
Figure 10. The distribution frequency of permeability in steam swept formations.
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Steam Injection in a Heavy Oil Reservoir 491
Figure 11. Thin section micrographs of pore distribution and oil content.
5. Conclusions
A series of experiments were conducted to study the interactions of temperature, salinity,
pH, generation and transformation of minerals, asphalt deposition, and wettability rever-
sion. The mechanisms of formation damages are summarized based on the experimental
results and reservoir property variations. From the results reported in this article, the
following conclusions can be drawn:
1. Efuents from eld steam generators usually have low salinity and high pH above
11. Elevated temperature and high pH accelerate dissolution of rock and clay, mineral
transformation near the steam injection well, scaling generation and plugging away
from the steam injection well, asphalt deposition, and variations of oil components in
reservoirs.
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Table 4
The relationships between pore distribution and oil content in thin sections
Large pores
>100 m
100 m
Middle pores
>20 m
Small pores
20 m
Well
name Depth, m
Formation
conditions
Pore
quantity
Oil
content,
%
Pore
quantity
Oil
content,
%
Pore
quantity
Oil
content,
%
J503 279.0284.0 Unswept 61 97.31 122 2.67 243 0.02
284.0288.05 Swept 45 97.69 101 2.29 333 0.02
J301 180.9182.9 Unswept 62 96.32 121 3.64 260 0.04
182.9185.3 Swept 48 90.34 328 8.94 1,059 0.72
2. Dissolution of rock grains during steam injection makes formation further unconsol-
idated to cause serious sand production and reservoir collapse. Generated earthworm
pores are connected to each other to lead to serious steam channeling.
3. Condensates of the steam front are found to be incompatible with formation water
and clay minerals to produce scales and precipitation plugging pore-throat in porous
media.
4. Pore surface is generated wettability reversal from water-wetted behavior to oil-wetted
behavior due to asphalt deposition. Parafn and asphalt deposit on pore surface or
plug narrow pores and pore-throats to cause oil production reduction. The content of
light components decreases during steam injection. Heavy components and asphalt
gradually deposit and plug narrow pores or pore-throats to cause production largely
reducing or shutting well in.
5. Both porosity and permeability increase near the steam injection well. The most
remaining oil is driven from large pores and middle pores in heavy oil reservoirs.
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (50276040)
and Important National Science & Technology Specic Projects of China (2008ZX050090-
004-05 and 2008ZX05000-011-04).
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