Kovscek

This issue of SPE Journal reflects the significant diversity of research topics within SPE's technical disciplines. Manuscripts in this issue address thermal recovery, well stimulation, optimization, measurement and control, oilfield chemistry, X-ray computed tomography imaging, two-phase flow in pipes, well testing, and uncertainty analysis. Six of the papers focus on thermal recovery.

The interest in fundamental research in thermal recovery is particularly encouraging to me because I have advocated more work in this area in the past. Of the papers on thermal recovery, three are related to in-situ combustion. In-situ combustion is a promising recovery technique in which air or enriched air is injected into a reservoir and a small fraction of the hydrocarbons are oxidized in-situ, producing heat and pressure through combustion gases. Within the reservoir, the high-temperature combustion front is a narrow zone of only a few centimeters in width that is analogous, in a fashion, to the glowing section of a cigarette. Characterization of combustion processes at laboratory and field scale remains a challenge. Combustion, however, presents important possibilities for upgrading and sulfur removal in the reservoir because the crude-oil components that contribute to fuel that is combusted are generally the heaviest and contain heteroatoms such as sulfur.

I encourage you to look at the combustion manuscripts; you’ll note that I am in the byline of two of these, along with my coworkers. Accordingly, I would like to describe the process by which SPE Journal evaluates manuscripts from its Executive Editor (EE). The process applied to submissions authored by an EE is quite similar to the process applied to papers authored by Associate Editors (AE). That is, any editor is "blinded" electronically from the details of the review process. An editor may check the status of a manuscript in the Author Center, as is the case with any author, and may correspond with SPE Technical Publications staff, but is barred from participating in the review process in any way. There are no extra privileges resulting from being both an author and an EE or AE for the same journal.

In the case that a manuscript is submitted for review from the EE, an acting EE is appointed to initiate the review process, select an AE, and render decisions on the manuscript. Dean Oliver was called back to duty to serve as the Executive Editor for our two manuscripts appearing here. We had to respond to criticism and modify our manuscript in exactly the same fashion as any other author.

I decided to address here the topic of EE and AE submissions to SPE Journal because I like our policies and actions at the Journal  to be well-understood and transparent. I hope that you have found this discussion to be of interest.

In closing, I would like to whet your intellectual appetite by telling you that December’s issue focuses on the topic of carbon dioxide. The coming issue has been in preparation for quite some time and will feature papers ranging from CO₂ sequestration, experimental measurement of relative permeability, enhanced oil recovery, CO₂-induced mineralization, well cementing in CO₂-rich environments, and similar topics. Please look for it in December.

Thank you for reading. I hope that you enjoy this issue and its 20 papers.

* Kovscek, A.R. 2005. Overview: Heavy Oil. J Pet Technol  57 (6): 62.