Steam injection is a major oil recovery method in Venezuela, with some three tril-lion barrels of oil possibly recoverable by this technique. As a result, alongside the progress in ste am injection technology, the development of a series of numerical sim-ulators has been proceeding at an acceler-ated pace in Venezuela. This paper describes three of the steam injection simulators developed over the past five years, and their application to two major heavy oil reservoirs. These simulators describe three phase, nonisother-mal multicomponent flow, comprising four, three and two components, respectively, in three dimensions. The implicitness of the simulators increases in the order of de-creasing number of components. It is shown, however, that for a variety of prob-lems the less implicit but more efficient simulators are adequate. The finite dif-ference methods used for each simulator are outlined. These, as well as the computa-tional performance, are compared with the existing simulators. The application of the simulators to two major reservoirs in Venezuela-Morichal and M-6-is described and compared. Effects of such factors as spacing, injection ra te, and gravity segre-gation are examined. It is shown that the oil recovery in the large M-6 steamflood would be 7 to 9% of the oil in place, well below the expected value, and considerably below the 15 -26% recovery predicted for the Morichal Field by the simulators. Re-sults also show that the oil-steam ratio is not always a reliable economic index. INTRODUCTION Steam injection is the most widely applied and promising enhanced oil recovery process for exploiting some of the vast deposits of heavy oil in Venezuela. The oil reservoirs in the Orinoco Petroleum Belt and the Bolivar Coast fields contain most of these heavy oils. The large M-6 and Morichal steam injection projects are representative of the future development of these oilfields.Several small field tests have been carried out in the Orinoco Petroleum Belt reservoirs. Waterflooding, gas injection, in situ combustion and cyclic steam injection have been tested on commercial scale. Sev-eral other proce
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