SPE-182708-MS

Numerical Modelling of Hybrid Steam and In-Situ Combustion Performance

for Oil Sands

Min Yang, University of Calgary; Thomas G. Harding, Nexen Energy ULC; Zhangxin Chen, Kuizheng Yu, Hui Liu,
Bo Yang, and Ruijian He, University of Calgary

Copyright 2017, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Reservoir Simulation Conference held in Montgomery, TX, USA, 2022 February 2017.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
Steam injection is a widely used thermal technology to recover heavy oil and oil sands resources, while
high operating costs have made it vulnerable to low crude oil prices. In-Situ Combustion (ISC) provides an
alternative to steam injection with the advantage of low operating costs and high energy efficiency. Hybrid
steam and ISC has great potential in oil sands recovery because it combines the advantages of both steam
injection and ISC. Before design of this hybrid process, it is important to understand the displacement
mechanisms during this hybrid process.
In this study, numerical simulation has been performed to investigate the performance of co-injection of
an air and steam process at the experimental scale. A three-dimensional radial numerical model has been
developed using CMG STARS to simulate a steam flood test and a combustion tube test. The co-injection
of enriched air and steam was performed after a period of hot water flooding in the combustion tube test.
Simulated temperature profiles and combustion front velocities were matched with experimental measured
results, indicating that the high temeprautre oxidation (HTO) reactions were captured in the simulation.
In order to understand displacement mechnisms, simulation results obtained from both tests have been
compared and analyzed, including temperature profiles, a steam front velocity, residual oil saturation, and
oil recovery.
It is found that co-injection of steam and enriched air has the potential to improve oil recovery. An ultimate
recovery factor of around 90% is achieved for the co-injection of the steam and enriched air process, while
the recovery factor is around 60% for the steam flooding test. This is because ISC is able to recover residual
oil left behind by the steam flooding. However, steam still plays a dominant role in displacement of bitumen.
The steam front propagates faster than the combustion front. Also, the steam front travels faster with the
presence of the combustion front, indicating that the combustion front behaves as a heat source for steam
front propagation. This work greatly increases the understanding of displacement mechanisms in a hybrid
steam and combustion process.
2 SPE-182708-MS

Introduction
Canada has the third largest proven crude oil reserves in the world (Xu and Bell, 2014) and the majority
of Canada's oil resources are in the form of oil sands. However, it is a big challenge to recover these oil
sands because of their extremely high viscosity and low mobility at reservoir conditions. Although steam
injection based on a thermal technology, such as Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS) and Steam-Assisted
Gravity Drainage (SAGD), has been commercially successful in field applications of western Canada
(Farouq Ali, 1994; Jiang et al., 2010; Albahlani and Babadagli, 2008; Zhou et al., 2016), the high capital and
operating costs make both CSS and SAGD vulnerable to low oil prices (Jonasson and Kerr, 2013; Harding et
al., 2016). Furthermore, carbon emissions resulting from steam generation are an environmental concern in
the steam based recovery methods (Yang and Gates, 2009b; Harding et al., 2016). In-Situ Combustion (ISC)
is an alternative thermal enhanced oil recovery technique in which energy is generated within a reservoir
by oxidizing either an original or modified fraction of the crude oil (Moore et al., 1995). Though ISC has
great potential because of its high energy efficiency and low operating costs, large uncertainties have limited
its success in field applications (Moore et al., 1999a; Freitag and Verkoczy, 2005; Greaves et al., 2012).
Recently, a hybrid of steam and ISC has been proposed as an economically efficient and environmentally
sustainable recovery process (Belgrave et al., 2007; Ursenbach et al., 2010; Jonasson and Kerr, 2013). It
is expected that the hybrid process can combine the advantages of both steam injection and ISC. Before
the application of this hybrid process for field application, it is of fundamental and practical importance to
understand the mechanisms in this process.
Although extensive laboratory studies have been conducted on ISC (Moore et al., 1999a; Yang and Gates,
2009; Fadaei et al., 2011; Glatz et al., 2011; Sierra and Trevisan, 2014), a relatively small number of papers
has been published on the hybrid of steam and ISC process at the experimental scale. Ivory et al. (1992)
were amongst the first to investigate the mechanisms in a steam-air injection process for Athabasca bitumen
with one-dimensional experiments. As the air concentration in the injection gas phase was less than 5%, it
was concluded that the bitumen recovery was primarily due to steam diversions and significant combustion
behavior was not reported. In the late 1990s, Moore et al. (1999b) presented a series of one-dimensional
combustion tube tests results, in which ISC was operated as a follow-up process to steam flooding. They
demonstrated that ISC could be successfully operated at residual oil saturation after steam flooding. Also,
the high temperature fronts which were higher than 500 C were stably sustained (Moore et al., 1999b).
In recent years, two-dimensional laboratory experiments were also conducted to show the feasibility of
ISC in a SAGD chamber (Oskouei et al., 2011; Oskouei et al., 2013) and it was shown that a combustion
front was successfully established in a depleted chamber. Also, the high temperatures (higher than 400 C)
recorded by thermocouples indicated significant combustion behavior or high temperature oxidation (HTO)
reactions. Though HTO reactions are believed to ensure the success of an ISC process, some researchers
also reported the co-injection of steam and air under the low temperature oxidation (LTO) condition (Ren et
al., 2002; Wang, et al., 2015; Yang et al., 2016a). It was suggested that improved oil recovery was achieved
when a volume ratio of air and steam was properly designed within a certain range (Yang et al., 2016a).
In the co-injection of air and water (or steam), the steam front and combustion front exist simultaneously.
By comparing a steam flooding test and a wet combustion tube test, Freitag and Exelby (1998) identified
the effects of two fronts on produced oil properties, while the temperature profiles and oil recovery were
not reported. It seems that numerical simulation of a hybrid steam and ISC process has not been performed.
Moreover, no attempt has been made to comprehensively compare the performance of steam flooding and
hybrid steam and ISC processes.
In this work, numerical simulation has been performed to investigate the performance of a hybrid steam
and ISC process for oil sands recovery at the experimental scale. A three-dimensional numerical model was
first developed to simulate a steam flooding test and a combustion tube test. In the case of the combustion
tube test, a reaction kinetics model was incorporated into the simulation to represent chemical reactions.
SPE-182708-MS 3

Simulated temperature profiles and combustion fornt velocities were matched with experimental measured
results, indicating that the high temeprautre oxidation (HTO) reactions were captured in the simulation.
Subsequently, a comprehensive comparison was made between the steam flooding test and the combustion
tube test, including temperature profiles, steam front velocity, residual oil saturation, and oil recovery.
The displacement mechanisms during co-injection of steam and air were well understood based on the
aforementioned analysis.

Numerical Model
The combustion tube test reported by Jonasson and Kerr (2013) was simulated in this study. The bitumen
used in the experiment has the API gravity of 6.16 API and contains 26.01 wt. % of asphaltenes. The
density and viscosity as a function of temerpature were provided by Jonasson and Kerr (2013) and presented
in Table 1. A simplified schematic of the combustion tube experimental setup is displayed in Figure 1. The
combustion tube has a diameter of 0.05 m and a length of 1.1 m. The bitumen and clean sands were packed
into the combustion tube to create a core pack. The tube was equipped with 14 heating zones. Temperature
along the tube was measured by 14 thermocouples located in each heating zone, respectively. More detailed
information about the combustion tube apparatus was presented by Moore et al. (1999b). The core was first
preheated to 90 C, at which temperature the Athabasca type of bitumen has the mobility to flow. Hot water
flood at 90 C was implemented as the first stage for about 20 hours at the flowrate of 90 ml/hour. The
steam flood was then initiated. When temperature measured by the second thermocouple reached 200 C,
co-injection of enriched air was started at a rate of 46.9 l/hour. The enriched air injected was shut off once
the temperature measured by the thermocouple in Zone 11 had peaked.

Table 1Bitumen density and viscosity as a function of temperautre (Janasson and Kerr, 2013)

40 C 55 C 70 C

Density, g/cm3 1.0122 1.0027 0.9933

Viscosity, cP 380800 60250 11000

Figure 1Schemical of combustion tube test experimental setup (CMG, 2014).

4 SPE-182708-MS

Grid system
Simulation of the combustion tube test and steam fooding test was performed with a commercial simulator
(STARS, Version 2014.10, Computer Modelling Group Ltd.). The combustion tube was modelled in a
three-dimensional (3D) radial (cylindrical) coordinate system. Three grid blocks in the radial direction were
designed to represent the sand pack, combustion tube wall, and insulator, respectively. In this way, the heat
loss during the tests can be considered. Previous studies (Lin et al., 1984; Yang and Gates, 2009) indicated
that grid thickness of approximately 1 cm in the direction of the combustion was sufficient to capture
the reaction zone of a combustion tube test. In this study, 135 grid blocks were assigned in the vertical
direction with the grid thickness of 0.00762 m to match the center of the grid cells with the thermocouple
placement along the combustion tube. Figure 2 displays a schematic of the grid system for combustion tube
simulation. Fourteen thermocouples are uniformly distributed along the combustion tube to measure the
temperature profiles as displayed in Figure 2. The first thermocouple is located near the injection and the
14th thermocouple is located at the production end of the combustion tube. Water (or steam) and enriched
air are injected from top. Liquid and combustion gases are produced from the bottom. Fluid properties in
terms of SARA fractions were characterized using CMG WinProp. The bitumen properties are the same as
those presented by Yang et al. (2016b). Homogeneous distributions of porosity, permeability, oil saturation
and water saturation are assumed in the test. For the steam flooding test, a synthetic test was assumed. The
packing and operating paramters were exactly the same as those in the combustion tube test, except that
enriched air was not injected. Steam injection was terminated when the temperature in Zone 11 reached 200
C. In both steam flooding and combustion tube tests simulation, the well operating conditions were used
as well constraints, which were set the same as those used in the experiment.

Figure 2Schematic of grid system for combustion tube simulation

SPE-182708-MS 5

Heat loss control

During the combustion tube test, peak temperatures inside the sand pack are usually higher than 600 C.
The huge temperature difference between the sand pack and surroundings results in considerable radial
heat transfer, which in turn affects temperature measurements inside the sand pack. Therefore, heat loss
during the test must be taken into account (Belgrave et al., 1993). In the physical combustion tube test,
14 wall heaters were installed around the combustion tube in order to minimize heat loss. A pre-specified
temperature difference between the wall heaters and the centerline of the sand pack was maintained to
achieve the near-adiabatic conditions (Alamatsaz et al., 2011). Previous studies associated with simulation
of combustion tube tests did not consider the heat loss (Sierra and Trevisan, 2014) or the heat provided by
wall heaters (Yang and Gates, 2009a; Cinar et al., 2011; Fadaei et al., 2011). In this study, the near-adiabatic
condition was simulated with the adiabatic heat transfer model coupled in CMG STARS using the key word
of "ADHEAT" (CMG, 2014). Mathematically, a heat gain rate was applied to the wall heaters as a function
of the core temperature, wall heater temperature, and temperature difference cut-off. The heat gain rate is
calculated below by Equation (1) (CMG, 2014):

(1)

where Tcore and Theater are the core temperature and wall heater temperature, respecitvley. Tdiff is the
temeprauter difference cut-off. Heat_coef is a proportional heat gain coefficient with the unit of J/day-C.
The heat gain rate is activated when the wall heater temperature is a certain temperature lower than the
core temperature; otherwise, it equals 0. In this way, a fixed temperature difference was assigned between
the wall heaters and centerline in the sand pack. The adiabatic heat transfer model is incoporated with the
following format:
(2)

Reaction model
The reaction kinetics model proposed by Yang et al. (2016b) was incorporated into the simulation of
combustion tube tests as this model is one of the most comprehensive reaction models in the literature.
Bitumen was characterized as Saturates, Aromatics, Resins and Asphaltenes (SARA) fractions. A complete
temperature range was included, including low temeperature oxidation (LTO), negative temperature
gradient (NTG), and high temperature oxidation (HTO). It should be noted that only the asphaltenes cracking
reaction was considered by Yang et al. (2016). In this work, a resins cracking reaction is also taken into
account. The reaction model as well as reaction kinetics are presented in Table 2. For each reaction, the
reaction rate is usually calculated as below,

Table 2Reaction kinetics model used in simulation of combustion tube test (Yang et al., 2016b; Chen et al., 2014)
6 SPE-182708-MS

(3)

where Ri is the reaction rate, Ci and PO2 are the instantaneous concentration and oxygen partial pressure,
respectively, a and b are reaction orders with respect to oxygen partial pressure and concentration,
respectively, A is a pre-exponetial factor and Ea is activation energy. For the Light Oil and Gas combustion
reactions, vapor phase combustion is considered. Therefore, vapor phase concentration must fall in the
flammable range, which consists of a lower flammable limit and an upper flammable limit. In the simulation
calculations, the above equation can be modified as follows:

(4)

Vapor phase concentration will be modified as 0 if the the concentration is not in the flammable range.
The keyword functions KVKEYCOMP and RXEQFOR are adapted to reach this approach (Barzin et al.,
2013; CMG, 2014; Bhattacharya et al., 2016).

Coke delay
Coke is deposited through an Asphaltenes cracking reaction as displayed in Table 2. It was experimentally
found that quick coke formation did not happen until a cumulative oxygen uptake rate reached 0.04 g O2/
g oil (Millour et al. 1987). This phenomenon is defined as a coke delay. In the simulation, the coke delay
can be well simulated with a Partial Equilibrium Reactions function in CMG STARS (CMG, 2014), which
relates the coke formation with asphaltenes concentration. In the numerical model, a newly defined pseudo
equilibrium constant (i.e., K(p, T)) is used to calculate specific asphaltenes concentration (i.e., Xequal) at
which the coke formation will start. According to STARS Users Guide (CMG, 2014), K(p, T) is expressed as
(5)
The constant values related to temperature and pressure in the above equation (i.e., rxk1, rxk2, rxk4, and
rxk5) are set to zero. Xequal is defined as
(6)
By choosing the proper constant values for the pseudo equilibrium expression, it was possible to relate
coke formation with asphaltenes concentrations. Based on the previous lab experiment observations and
sensitivity analysis, it was recommended that coke formation started when asphaltenes molar concentration
reached 0.11 (Sequera et al., 2010).

Results and Discussion

ISC is an important part in the hybrid process because oxidation reactions between oxygen and oil is able
to release a large amount of heat. Before investigating the performance of a steam flooding and hybrid
process, history matching of combustion front locations as well as temperature profiles were performed. As
suggested by Sierra and Trevisan (2014), the first step of history matching combustion tube tests is to match
the combustion front velocity. The stroicheometric coefficient of coke formation was adjusted to match the
coke formation. However, kinetic modelling is a complex topic and it is not the focus of this study. So the
detailed procedures of adjusting the reaction kientics model is not presented here and only history matched
results are displayed in Figures 3 and 4. Figure 3 plotted the combustion front locations. It indicates that
a combustion front propagated through the cobmsution tube stably. These combustion front locations are
linearly regressed to produce the combustion front velocity. The combustion front velocity is regressed as
0.422 m/h. There is a great agreement between the measured and simulated combustion front velocities (see
SPE-182708-MS 7

Figure 3). It is worthwhile mentioning that the time at which enriched air was injected into the core was
defined as zero time in Figure 3.

Figure 3Comparision of measured and simulated combustion front (450 C) location for combustion tube test.

Figure 4Comparison of measured and simulated temperature profiles for combustion tube test.

Comparisons of measured and simulated temperature profiles were displayed in Figure 4 with the focus
on co-injection of air and steam stage. In order to keep the plot clear and easy to read, temperatures measured
by five thermocouples were presented. Peak temperatures are in the range of 500-700 C, indicating
successful HTO reactions. It can be observed that temperatures predicted by the numerical simulation were
in agreement with the measured results. The peak temperatures and high temperature front in each zone
were consistent with experimental measurements. However, there were deviations in downstream of the
8 SPE-182708-MS

peak temperatures. Such deviations are significant in Zone 2 and Zone 3 for both tests. These discrepancies
are due to the fact that the heater control strategy, which is termed a lag-lead operation, cannot be exactly
modelled with the numerical simulation. As mentioned in the previous section, 14 discrete wall heaters
were installed along the combustion tube to maintain the near adiabatic condition. Each heater covers an
axial distance of 7.5 cm (Moore et al., 1999b; Alamatsaz et al., 2011), which is much greater than the
grid thickness in the simulation. During physical tests, each heater provides heat to a wide area, which is
not supposed to happen in simulation. Therefore, radial heat loss was increased in the simulation. In the
following sections, performance of the hybrid steam and ISC process will be compared with that of steam
flooding in terms of temeprautre profiles, a steam front velocity, residual oil saturation, and oil recovery.

Temperature
The temperature profiles obtained from the steam flooding test and the combustion tube test are displayed in
Figures 5a and 5b, respectively. It is obvious that peak temperatures in the hybrid process are much higher
than in the steam flooding test. In both tests, steam was injected at around 24.5 hr followed by hot water
injection. In Figure 5a, tempeture in each zone increases graduately from 90 C to 220 C. The steam front
propagates through the tube stably and successively. In the case of the combustion tube test, co-injection of
enriched air was initiated at 26.33 hr. In Fugre 5b, temperature in each zone graduatly increase to 220 C
because of steam injection. Once the enriched air is injected, temperature suddently increases up to the peak
temperature and then decrease gradually to the steam temperature, creating a stable steam plateau zone.
The steam plateau temperature observed between 27 and 29 hr in Figure 5b was around 200 C, which
is less than the steam saturation temperature at operating pressure. This is because steam was mixed with
combustion gases. As a rule of thumb, steam plateau temperature is in the range of 30 C less than the
saturation temperature of water at the reservoir pressure (Abu et al., 2015). Another interesting observation
in Figure 5b is that the steam front reached Zone 12 at 27.2 hr, while the combustion front arrived at Zone 12
at around 28.5 hr. This indicates that the steam front propagates faster than the combustion front. Based on
temperature profiles in Figure 5, the steam front (200 C used) locations obtained from the steam flooding
test and the combustion tube test were plotted in Figure 6. The steam front propagated faster with the
presence of the combustion front (i.e., combustion tube test) than that without the combustion front (i.e.,
steam flooding test). Physically, a steam front velocity is based on heat transfer. So it can be concluded that
the combustion front behaviors like a heat source to support the steam front. This finding is consistent with
that documented in the literature (Freitag and Exelby, 1998).
SPE-182708-MS 9

Figure 5Temperature profiles of (a) steam flooding test and (b) combustion tube test.
10 SPE-182708-MS

Figure 6Steam front locations for steam flooding test and combustion tube test.

Residual Oil Saturation

In order to better understand the displacement mechanisms in the co-injection of the steam and enriched air
stage, temperature and saturation distributions along the combustion tube were plotted in Figure 7. Fgiure
7a represents temperature and saturation profiles at 26.9 hr of the steam flooding test. At this moment, the
steam front reached 0.18 m from the injection. Based on temperature, two zones are defined, including a
steam zone and a hot water zone. The temperature in the steam zone is 220 C and residual oil saturation
in the steam swept zone is around 0.35. The steam front displaces oil downwards and form an oil bank.
Beyond the steam zone is the hot water. The temperature is kept as 90 C and the oil saturation is 0.6. Figure
7b depicts temperature and saturation profiles for the hybrid injection process. At 26.9 hr of the test, the
combustion front with the peak temperature of more than 600 C reached approximately 0.188 m, while the
steam front reached 0.63 m from the injection of the combustion tube. Three distinct zones were defined
based on the temperature and oil saturation, namely a combustion zone, a steam zone, and a hot water zone.
Residual oil saturation in the combustion zone was approximately zero and this zone was saturated with
injected steam and enriched gas. The combustion front consumed a small part of oil as fuel and displaced
the other oil downwards. A new oil bank was, therefore, formed just in front of the combustion front. This
feature is defined as the bulldozing effect (Gutierrez et al., 2009). The combustion front acts as a bulldozer
to displace the oil immediately ahead of it, which is not displaced by steam or hot water. In the situation
as shown in Figure 7b, the bulldozing effect is an advantageous feature for combustion. The newly formed
oil bank ahead of the combustion front has high oil saturation and, therefore, reduced gas permeability. As
such, air is not easy to breakthrough and it reduces the tendency for the reaction zone to finger. However,
this phenomenon may be a problem for a traditional dry ISC in heavy oil or bitumen reservoirs especially
at the early stage. Oil or bitumen near a production well has low mobility, while the combustion front
near an injector can effectively displace the oil ahead of it and form an oil bank. This oil bank reduces the
gas saturation below the critical level because of its high oil saturation. Therefore, the injected air flux is
dropped to a level where HTO reactions cannot be sustained. This phenomenon is also called pore blocking
(Ursenbach et al., 2010). This is the reason why ISC is preferred to be used as a follow up process after
steam based injection in heavy oil or bitumen reservoirs. Beyond the combustion front was the steam zone.
The steam front advanced faster than the combustion front. The temperature in the steam zone was constant
SPE-182708-MS 11

as steam saturation temperature (around 220 C) from 0.2 m to 0.7 m of the tube, while steam quality was
decreasing because it lost its latent heat. At 0.63 m from the injector, steam condensed to hot water. The
hot water zone was formed ahead of the steam zone and saturated with only oil and water. Based on the
above analysis, the combustion front is able to recover the residual oil left by hot water and steam flooding,
which contributes significantly to the ultimate oil recovery. By the end of the test, the residual oil saturation
was plotted in Figure 8. The residual oil saturiton for the steam flooding test was around 0.33. The residual
oil saturation was zero at 0.9 m of the combustion tube and there still was residual oil saturation near the
production end of the combustion tube. This is because the air injected was terminated when the combustion
front arrived at Zone 11 for the safety consideration.

Figure 7Temperature and fluid saturation distribution at 26.9 hr of (a) steam flooding test and (b) combustion tube test.
12 SPE-182708-MS

Figure 8Residual oil saturation at the end of steam flooding test and combustion tube test.

Oil Recovery
The oil recovery for both tests is presented in Figure 9. The steam flooding test recovered 62% of the initial
oil in place (IOIP), while the hybrid steam and enriched air process exhibits a great potential to displace oil
and has a final oil recovery up to 90% of IOIP. Comparing the oil recovery profiles from these two tests,
it seems that hot water flooding displaces around 35% of IOIP because the bitumen was preheated to 90
C at the beginning of the tests. Steam flooding displaces around 28% of IOIP. ISC contributes to another
30% of oil recovery due to the fact that theoretically there is no residual oil left behind the combustion
front. Another observation from Figure 9 is the timing of oil production. In both tests, steam injection was
started at 24.5 hr. Significant oil production occurred much earliter in the hybrid injection test than that
in the steam flooding test. This is mainly because the steam front moves faster in the hybrid process as
discussed in the previous section. In an oil dispalcemnt process, a steam front creats an oil bank and this
oil bank grows as the steam front proceeds. Oil production occurs when the oil bank arrives at a production
end. Therefore, a high steam front velocity contributes to the early oil production. In addition, the hybrid
process can effectively reduce steam injection, which can further lead to a reduced steam-oil ratio, water
usage, and carbon emission.
SPE-182708-MS 13

Figure 9Oil Revoery from steam flooding test and combustion tube test

Conclusions
In this work, numerical modelling was performed to investigate the performance of a hybrid steam and ISC
process for oil sands recovery at the experimental scale. A numerical simulation model has been developed
with the consideration of a fine grid size, heat loss, chemical reactions, and coke delay. Both physical and
chemical phenomena were captured. By comparing simulation results from a steam flooding test and a
hybrid injection test, it is found that hybrid of steam and ISC has great potential to displace bitumen. The
ultimate recovery factor can be up to 90% during a hybrid process because ISC can recover the residual
bitumen left behind by steam flooding and there is no residual oil left in a combustion front swept zone.
However, steam still plays a dominating role to displace bitumen. The steam front progresses faster than
the combustion front. Meanwhile, the combustion front behaves as a heat source to support steam flooding.
The steam front propagates faster with the presence of the combustion front and contributes to earlier oil
production. In a hybrid steam and ISC process, steam injection can be effectively reduced, leading to reduced
water usage and carbon emission.

Acknowledgements
This research has been made possible by contributions from the NSERC/AIEES/Foundation CMG Industrial
Research Chair in Reservoir Simulation, the AITF (iCore) Chair in Reservoir Modelling, and the Frank and
Sarah Meyer Foundation CMG Collaboration Centre.

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