Pp. 289-298 H. Garcнa, E. Niz Velбsquez, M. Trujillo ANTICIPATING OPERATIONAL ISSUES FOR THE FIELD PILOT TEST OF AIR INJECTION IN CHICHIMENE H. Garcнa, E. Niz Velбsquez, M. Trujillo Ecopetrol S.A. – Colombian Petroleum Institute, Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia Colombia possesses 53 000 MBBL OOIP, from which 36 % corresponds to heavy and extra heavy oil. <...> Out of this, 19 000 MBBL (70 %) are located in reservoirs at depths greater than 6000 ft. This fact makes mature EOR processes such as steam injection very challenging, forcing Ecopetrol to look for other alternatives to improve the recovery factor for this type of reservoirs. <...> In situ combustion is a technology widely tested through the history of the oil industry. <...> With applications since the early 40th´s, there have been very successful projects around the world such as Suplacu de Barcau in Romania and Balol and Santhal in India with recovery factors above 50 %; however several failures have been reported due to both reservoir conformance and operational malpractices. <...> Chichimene in situ combustion pilot is the first attempt for Ecopetrol to incorporate this technology that could be applied to at least 80 % of its heavy oil assets. <...> Through analogy analysis as well as experimental tests run in the laboratory, a risk characterization and analysis was carried out and the most critical problems were identified for our specific case. <...> The Colombian Petroleum Institute of Ecopetrol then established four lines of research, one for each of the issues with high probability of impacting the Chichimene pilot: (1) Materials integrity for both bottom hole and surface equipment due to corrosion; (2) Characterization, preparation and treatment of emulsions from the in situ combustion process; (3) Temperature impact on sand consolidation; (4) Analysis of injectivity and connectivity through the target formation. <...> Keywords: in situ combustion, heavy oil, operational issues, emulsions, corrosion, sand consolidation, injectivity, connectivity DOI: 10.18599/grs.18.4.6 For citation: Garcнa H., Niz Velбsquez E., Trujillo M. Anticipating operational issues for the field pilot test of air injection in Chichimene. <...> DOI: 10.18599/grs.18.4.6 Introduction In situ combustion (ISC) is a process that consists on injecting air into the formation to generate <...>