“…The steam temperature may easily exceed 200 °C and could reach 350 °C, under pressure that could reach 6 MPa (Placido et al, 1997;Dean and Torres, 2002;Alvarez and Han, 2013). The heating process generated by steam injection can induce extreme thermal stresses in the well, which, when combined to mechanical stresses, may cause: (i) plastic yielding and/or buckling of the steel casing (Placido et al 1997;Peng et al, 2007;Li, 2008;Ferla et al, 2009), and (ii) cracking or failure of the cement sheath and/or its debonding from the casing and surrounding rock formation (Dean and Torres, 2002;Garnier et al, 2010;De Bruijn et al, 2010;Teodoriu et al, 2013;Yuan et al, 2013;Wang and Taleghani, 2014;Lavrov et al, 2015;Shadravan et al, 2015;Ichim et al, 2016). A damaged cement sheath can favor leakage of hydrocarbonates to the rock formation, where they may propagate through geological strata to reach aquifers or the surface, thus causing significant environmental degradation, and calling for expensive remedial measures (Thiercelin et al, 1998;Nelson and Guillot, 2006;Bellabarba et al, 2008;Dusseault and Jackson, 2014;Lavrov et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2015;Abimbola et al, 2016).…”