This paper describes steamflood experiments carried out using a visual reservoir model. The objective of this work was to examine the effect of gravity on the steamflood performance in an inclined reservoir.
The model 45cm long by 15cm high by 1cm thick was a bakelite container having a transparent side and was filled with glass beads and saturated with the nondistillated oil. In this work, three different steamflood experiments of updip injection (dip angle=-45 degrees), downdip injection (dip angle=+45 degrees) and horizontal injection, were performed with saturated steam injection. The results were as follows:
(1) The effects of gravity override and oil displacement efficiency by steam depend on inclination of the reservoir. This is reflected in oil recovery performance.
(2) The experimental results describe the strong effect of condensed water on oil production performance.
(3) In the case of updip injection, as augmentation of steam zone growth, the shape of steam zone estimated by the LOOKEREN's formula has been shown to be in good agreement with the observed shape.