Increasing heavy oil reserves in the Wilmington oil field through advanced reservoir characterization and thermal production technologies. Technical progress report

The project involves improving thermal recovery techniques in a slope and basin clastic (SBC) reservoir in the Wilmington field, Los Angeles Co., California using advanced reservoir characterization and thermal production technologies. This is the third quarterly technical progress report for the project. Significant technical achievements accomplished include the drilling of four horizontal wells (two producers and two steam injectors) utilizing a new and lower cost drilling program, the drilling of five observation wells to monitor the horizontal steamflood pilot, the installation of a subsurface harbor channel crossing for delivering steam to an island location, and a geochemical study of the scale minerals being created in the wellbore. Cyclic steam injection into the two horizontal injection wells began in mid-December 1995 utilizing the new 2400 ft steam line under the Cerritos channel and the wells will be placed on production in May. Cyclic steam injection into the two horizontal producers will start in May. Work on the basic reservoir engineering is expected to be completed in March 1996. The deterministic geologic model was improved to add eight layers to the previous ten