Talk:Steam injection (oil industry)

Possibly significant errors?

I believe there are some major errors with this article. I grew up in the oilfields around Lake Maracaibo and worked there for a few years, and don't have any documentation of this. But I was told by people with actual experience (engineers and managers) that at least in the early to late-1970's, it was common to inject steam for 30 days, "soak" for 30 more days, then open the well to production. I heard that the practice was more or less discovered by accident, as a result of a mistake during the 1960's. The earlier practice had been to soak for just a few days, but a well was left shut-in for over a month before anyone checked on it. The wellhead showed a pressure of well over 1000 psi. That's low for a producing well, but they had been expecting zero pressure. Since this is based on memory I hesitate to edit the main article but I hope this encourages someone else to go looking for details. Marzolian (talk) 01:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)