Welcome to the In-Situ Combustion (ISC) website

Alex Turta's website

The intent of this website is to share my expertise on In-Situ Combustion (ISC), as a method for exploitation/recovery of the oil and gas, and recovery of the energy stored in the underground coal. The most widespread utilization has been as an Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) method applied in heavy oil reservoirs. Synonyms for in situ combustion are:

  • Underground combustion
  • Fireflooding
"Underground combustion" in other languages:
Spanish:Combustion subterranea (combustion en sitio o combustion en el yacimiento)
French:Combustion souterraine (combustion in situ or deplacement par combustion)
Russian:Внутрипластовое горение (Vnutriplastovoe gorenie)
German:Unterirdische Verbrennung (In Situ Verbrennungsprozese)
Dutch:Ondergrondse verbranding
Portuguese:Combustao in-situ
Chinese:火烧油层
Hindi:Bhumigat Jwalan
Arabic:الاحتراق تحت الأرض
Romanian:Combustie subterana
Norwegian:Undergrunn forbrenning (Underjordisk forbrenning)

Similar to the steam-injection based processes, ISC is a thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) process. My OBJECTIVE is to provide ISC related knowledge, both basics and essential last-minute advancements, in order to facilitate a quick update for youngsters and/or engineers and scientists, just entering this area of EOR. This is imperative as ISC mechanisms are more complex that those for other thermal processes.


BIO - Alex Turta: CEO of A T EOR Consulting Inc

Alex Turta

A T EOR Consulting Inc. is a company specialized in EOR and Heavy Oil Recovery. Alex has a Ph.D. in oil recovery by in situ combustion (ISC), with a subsequent in-depth specialization in ISC applications.

For more than 12 years, Alex was involved in the implementation and management of Suplacu de Barcau commercial project, the world's biggest ISC project.

He has served as an ISC consultant in North and South America, Europe and Asia. He has also been engaged in assignments from the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programs (UNDP). As an UNDP expert he has guided the development of Balol and Santhal ISC projects in India, from pilot to commercial stage operation.

All in all, he has been involved in 8 commercial ISC operations and 16 ISC pilots, worldwide.

Alex is the recipient of 2012 Society of Petroleum Engineers Canada Regional Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award for his contributions in theory and practice of ISC application; he was instrumental in developing the theory and practice of commercial exploitation of heavy oil reservoirs by ISC using the peripheral line drive operation starting from the uppermost part of the structure; this theory has been confirmed by the successful operation of the commercial ISC projects at Suplacu de Barcau (Romania), Glen Humel and Mid-way Sunset, USA, Balol and Santhal (India) and other projects.

Also, Alex is the recipient of 2024 Society of Petroleum Engineers International Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award for his contribution to the foundation and development of the new in-situ combustion process called Toe-to-Heel Air Injection (THAI) along with its theoretical support by the development of the theory of short-distance and long-distance heavy oil displacement.

Alex is the author of the ISC chapter in the USA published book, namely "Enhanced Oil Recovery. Field Case Studies", Elsevier, 2013, Editor James J. Sheng.

Since 1992, Alex has been part of the “split-team”, which has continuously worked on both sides of the Atlantic (in UK and Canada), to develop novel ISC processes for heavy oil recovery, namely Toe-To-Heel Air Injection (THAI) and its version for in-situ upgrading, CAPRI. Since 1996 Alex has also been instrumental in developing the Toe-To-Heel Waterflooding process.

For the use of horizontal wells in heavy oil recovery, he introduced and defined the concept of short-distance oil displacement as opposed to the concept of long-distance oil displacement, used in conventional light oil recovery, when using only vertical wells.

Expertise in the area of oil recovery by ISC

  1. Obtained his Ph.D with a contribution to the development of the wet combustion process
  2. More than 27 year's experience with field, laboratory and analytical modelling of ISC, being instrumental in the design, implementation and evaluation of the biggest world’s ISC process at Suplacu de Barcau, Romania (maximum daily oil production 10,000 bbl/day) and guiding the second biggest world’s ISC processes in Balol and Lanwa, in India
    • Technical reports on ISC: 37 (for more than 18 projects, both pilots and commercial projects)
    • Publications on ISC process/projects: 20
    • ISC international consultancy work: Ecuador, India, Malaysia, Japan, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Romania, Brazil, USA, Colombia and Argentina; World Bank ISC expert in 1986 for Videle-Balaria commercial ISC projects in Romania; ISC expert for India in the period 1991-1996 and in 2015
    • Consultancy in North America: Amoco, USA, Oracle Oil, USA, ARC (1993)
    • ISC related patents: 9

Alex Turta’s top accomplishments related to the development of ISC process:

  • Instrumental in developing the theory and practice of commercial exploitation of heavy oil reservoirs by ISC using the peripheral line drive operation starting from the uppermost part of the structure; today, this is the preferred mode of exploitation, worldwide.
  • Instrumental in the development of the short-distance oil displacement (SDOD) processes: Toe-To-Heel Air Injection (THAI), and catalytic THAI (CAPRI), in a long cooperation (1992-2003) with University of Bath, England. THAI and CAPRI are new recovery processes for heavy oil recovery. Also, developed the Toe-To-Heel Waterflooding (TTHW) process and investigated the Toe-To-Heel Steamflooding, which, at this time, is still under development
  • In year 2000, he introduced the concept of Short-distance oild displacement (SDOD) process, used extensively in conjunction with SAGD, THAI, top-down ISC, etc, which are SDOD processes
  • Established a more general equation for the calculation of the apparent hydrogen-carbon ratio (H/C ratio) from the composition of the produced gases of an ISC pilot. This takes into account the gases which are non-participating in the combustion but are produced with those participating, such as hydrocarbon gases, hydrogen, some CO2, etc
  • Highlighted the strong positive effect of high reservoir temperature on the applicability of ISC. This is directly related to the possibility of using small air fluxes (low air injection rates) and to the possibility of using the peripheral line drive operation starting from the uppermost part of the structure

Banner

Identification of the pictures in the Banner (from left to right):

  1. A general schematics of ISC
  2. Combustion tube set up of Institut Francais du Petrole. As presented in the book: Thermal Methods of Oil Recovery by J.Burger, P.Sourieau and M.Combarnous. Edition Technip Paris, 1985
  3. An illustrative schematics of oxidation reactions at increasing temperature during in-situ combustion process, leading to the formation of fuel; the role of saturates and aromatics during the process are highlighted (courtesy of Dr. Aleksandra Ushakova)
  4. Position of linear ISC front at Suplacu de Barcau after 34 years of commercial operation (Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology, November 2007)
  5. Schematics of THAI process in a vertical section (courtesy of University of Bath, UK)
  6. Schematics of THAI field testing in the Kerrobert Project, SK, Canada (courtesy of Petrobank Energy and Resources)

MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ISC PROCESS, INCLUDING THAI PROCESS

MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ISC PROCESS, IN GENERAL
J. Alexander, N.K. Baibakov, John Belgrave, Arkadii Bokserman, Jack Burger, Chieh. Chu, Murat Cinar, D.N. Dietz, Reza Fassihi, Norman Freitag, Claude Gadelle, Byron Gottfried, Malcolm Greaves, Dubert Gutierrez, Wenlong Guan, Berna Haskakir, Pan Jingjun, Tang Junshi, Punitkumar Kapadia, R.L. Koch, Anthony Kovscek, C.S. Kuhn, Victor Machedon, W.L. Martin, Raj Mehta, J.S. McNiel, Gordon Moore, John Moss, T.W. Nelson, Valentin Petcovici, S.K. Sinha, Sidhartha Sur, Alex Turta, Philip White, and Dimitrios Yanimaras.
All other persons having their Ph.D. theses in the area of in-situ combustion investigation (such as: Reza Alamatsaz, Hamid Rahnema, Alex Condrachi, Eider Niz-Velasquez, Keni Adegbesan, Nicolae. Trasca, Zeinab Khansari, Melek Deniz etc)

MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TOE-TO-HEEL AIR INJECTION (THAI)/CAPRI PROCESSES
Ado Muhammad Rabiu, Alex Turta, Malcolm Greaves, Conrad Ayasse, Claude Gadelle, Wenlong Guan, Ankush Kumar, Narayan Rao, Ramesh Pareek, Ravinder Sierra, Konstantin Starkov, Renbao Zhao, Xia TianXiang, Abarasi Hart and Joseph Wood.
All other persons having their Ph.D. theses in the area of THAI investigation (such as: Anbari Hossein, De Araujo E. Andrade, T. Lopeman, Safaei, Mohsen, Wei Wei, etc)


Acknowledgments

Many thanks to all collaborators/reviewers for their support in building this website; especially to:

  • Dr. Malcolm Greaves - Former Professor, University of Bath, UK
  • Dr. Joe Wood, Professor at University of Birmingham, UK
  • Dr. Claude Gadelle, France and USA
  • Dr. Aleksandra Ushakova, Russia and China
  • Dr. Yi-Bo Li, Chengdu, China
  • Dr. Norman Freitag, former Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) Regina, Canada
  • Ravinder Sierra, Calgary, Canada
  • Roy Coates - former Alberta Research Council (ARC), Edmonton, Canada
  • David McLellan, Former Petrobank Energy and Resources - Calgary, Canada
  • Dr. Adel Guirgis, Calgary, Canada