THERMAL MINING METHOD FOR HIGH-VISCOSITY OIL FIELD DEVELOPMENT Russian patent published in 2006 - IPC E21B43/24 

FIELD: oil industry, particularly thermal oil field mining.

SUBSTANCE: method involves selecting development region; drilling surface injection wells along development region boundary so that the injection wells are ahead of other field facilities; building field facilities along with injecting steam through surface injection wells to preliminarily heat oil reservoir areas and to provide heat front movement in the reservoir from production region boundary towards mine workings; operating surface injection wells in cyclic regime of steam treatment and oil displacement along with periodically shifting the wells between production and injection modes; driving mine working in productive oil reservoir; stopping steam injection in surface injection wells; determining time period enough for steam condensation in previously heated oil reservoir areas; performing technological time delay during above time period; drilling gently slanted steam-distribution wells having bottoms directed into oil reservoir roof; crossing surface injection wells or driving the wells in well influence area so that common injection system adapted to inject steam in the oil reservoir is created; drilling gently slanted production wells between gently slanted steam-distribution ones; injecting steam through surface injection wells; recovering oil through gently slanted production wells; extracting oil through gently slanted steam-distribution wells up to steam outburst and then converting above wells into steam-distribution regime; controlling liquid temperature at productive and steam-distribution well heads; changing flow rates of steam to be injected through surface injection wells and equalizing temperature of liquid produced through productive wells. After steam outburst ceasing into steam-distribution wells the wells are converted into production ones.

EFFECT: increased intensity of oil field development.

1 ex, 5 dwg