Underground Upgrading of Heavy Oil Using THAI-''Toe-to-Heel Air Injection''

摘要

The expansion of heavy oil and bitumens production is limited by the lack of advanced upgrading facilities and technology.Surface processing,mainly by delayed coking and some hydroprocessing,is very capital intensive.This cost can be more than that for the reservoir engineering facilities. The THAI process achieves substantial upgrading of heavy crude oil directly in the reservoir,via thermal cracking and associated reaction transformations.It captures the underground upgrading because the horizontal producer well process operates via a'short-distance displacement mechanism',similar to that which occurs in the SAGD process.