A Novel Approach in Understanding the Role of Water in Oxidation and Upgrading Reactions during In-Situ Combustion Oil Recovery, Part A: Experimental Observations

Abstract

To understand the role of connate water as a source of hydrogen in oxidation and upgrading of bituminous oil at high temperature, heavy water (D2O) and O-18 enriched water (H2O18) were used as connate water in two different in-situ combustion experiments using a conical tube. Aside from fundamental understanding of the role of such reactions in in-situ combustion, the results could also potentially help in optimizing in-situ hydrogen generation and upgrading of heavy and bituminous oil. The conical tube had previously been used for understanding the impact of air flux (AF) in sustaining the combustion front (Alamatsaz et al. 2011). Significant upgrading was observed in these tests with a produced API gravity of 35 ° compared to the original bitumen gravity of 9 °API. This paper (Part A) deals with the experimental results including a comparison between conical tube and a combustion tube (CT) results. A subsequent paper (Part B) will discuss the upgrading aspects and the mass spectrometry results.