With dwindling resources and mushrooming energy demands worldwide, HPHT field development has come under the limelight of the industry. Thus for expanding the existing horizons, new frontiers in HPHT stimulation advancements are being anticipated for economical harnessing of hydrocarbons. From more than a decade, surfactant fluids had been extensively employed in completion and stimulation operations as the surfactants arrange anatomically to form very long worm-like micelles, maintaining considerably low formation damage levels, and simultaneously exhibiting brilliant rheological properties, viscosity and proppant transportability. High fluid leak off and its inability to withstand temperatures greater than 200°F, have limited its HPHT application. Similar is the case for proppants where significant advancements have been made to increase its strength, but with better strength it has become heavier, causing early screenout, making it unable to reach deeper-complex fractures and requiring more viscous fluids. This paper discusses in detail an extensive review of the application of nanoparticle and hydrogel polymer technology to enhance fluid -proppant performance in conditions with temperatures nearing 275°F and brine density up to 14.4ppg. This can be achieved by developing nano-sized crystals, which colligate with VES rod-like micelles to yield a virtual viscous filter cake that significantly curbs the fluid loss rate, thus demonstrating wall building on the porous media, rather than usual viscosity dependant leak off control. When internal breakers are applied, VES micelle structures degrade rapidly, leaking off VES fluid and the pseudo filter cake will then split into brine and nanoparticles, thus producing formations remains intact. To augment its performance proppants can be encapsulated with a thin hydrogel polymer layer which will hydrate on coming in contact with water. This layer smoothens the proppant, adsorbs the fines, and makes the proppant self-suspending. This wonder layer is resilient to high pressure high temperature conditions and exhibits excellent characteristics which are elucidated in this paper.When applied, nanotechnology can reduce requirement of VES fluid volume by 60% and permeability range of VES fluid application is extended upto 2000md. While the incorporation of self-suspending proppants (SSP) can significantly bring down the requirement of additives and enable fracturing of challenging formations with maximum retained conductivity.

Ferrofluids are Fe3O4 based Magnetic Nano Particles (MNPs) and can be coated with a layer to form a super-hydrophobic material which selectively adsorbs oil. These colloidal ferromagnetic nano-particles show remarkable magnetic susceptibility. The ability of ferrorfluids was at display in the Gulf of Mexico and other oil spill clean-up. Excellent on-surface results suggest us to exploit its potential under sub-surface conditions too. The paper puts forward the potential on MNPs in EOR/IOR, proper production scenarios and techniques to inject this magnetically-controlled oil-adsorbing fluid through pad during hydraulic-fracturing operations. Sodium oleate coated magnetite (Fe3O4) is found to be the best suited MNP constituent for pad fluid. Fe3O4 particles modified with sodium oleate have successfully been able to generate super-hydrophobic surfaces. Their average size ranges from ~5nm to 10nm, thus are capable of getting suspended in pad fluid during injection and passing through the oil bearing zone without plugging the pores during fracturing operation. MNP's motion can be forced and controlled by applying magnetic field which makes MNPs a great asset for improvisation of fracturing techniquesn (Experimentally tested over 100 different oil and heavy crude oil at FERMILAB, Batavia Illinois). Injecting highly viscous Frackfluid ‘pad’ is amongst the primary part of fracturing job as it is used to initiate/propagate the fracture. Continuous loss of pad to formation will cause fracture propagation and at the final stage pad will be completely lost to the formation. Oleate coated MNP injected along with pad will selectively adsorb oil in the region where pad interacts with oil in formation. Initially applying outward magnetic field will cause solid MNPs to reach farther in formations, leaving behind the injected fluid in nearby formation, to sweep maximum reservoir volume. Second step is to apply an inward field towards the bore hole, which will force the MNPs to trace back into the wellbore along with adsorbed hydrocarbon on their surface. Magnetic field can easily drive these nanoparticles through tight/low permeable reserves and during heavy crude recovery. Their selective adsorption and hydrophobic nature can be of great significance in production through water bearing zones. Prepared MNP is both hydrophobic and lipophilic. Therefore Fe3O4 with sodium oleate could be soundly dispersed in the oil medium present in formations and recovered by applying magnetic field directed toward producing well. This technique shows a new path for the industry in advanced fracturing operations involving fracturing through deep, heavy oil reserves, HPHT and highly water saturated reserves. Validity of the proposed process has been elucidated in the paper considering various technical and operational variables.

Gas Hydrate, one of the unexplored domains in the energy sector has a vast potential to quench the future energy demands. Depressurization, Thermal Stimulation, Carbon swapping and Inhibitor injection are a few processes involved in its production. These techniques are environmentally degrading as uncontrolled dissociation of Gas Hydrates takes place. The paper focuses on an unexplored but a sustainable technique to extract gas hydrates. When depressurization along with CO 2 swapping methods are used simultaneously in two adjacent wells, then these both methods results in a continuous flow of CH 4 in both wells through surface and sub-surface reservoir. They acts as counterparts of each other and diminishes each other's limitations that are being faced when used individually. So, this method could be a future technique to efficiently and economically extract methane from its clathrate. The paper also discusses the well modeling required to implement this technique and simultaneously increasing the amount of methane hydrates exposed, overcoming the permeability issues by using Depressurization method along with CO 2 swapping through injectors and producers creating a continuous cyclic process of swapping and production. In the proposed method, two adjacent wells are used as producer and injector well, at injector swapping method is employed and at producer well depressurization method is employed. Relevant issues along with well modeling and advantages are also discussed in the paper.

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Majority of the Indian Oil Fields have gone well past the age of self-flow, with only a very few select wells currently producing crude utilizing the natural reservoir energy. It is a well-documented fact that the age of easy, light oil has passed and that, most of the new discoveries being made are those of either heavy or ultra-heavy crude oil types. SRPs, ESPs, Jet pumps, Gas lift are the various modes of artificial lift currently under employment. However, all these methods fail when heavy oils are encountered. In such cases, these methods of artificial lift fail to provide the requisite lift for the crude to reach the surface. However, the Progressive Cavity Pumps (PCPs) have found great utility under conditions of heavy crude production. The spiral motion of the Pump cavity from suction to discharge causes jerk-free motion of the crude. PC Pumps have distinctive advantage over the other methods, when heavy crudes along with significant sand cuts are to be produced. PC Pumps are also used on a large scale for de-watering of CBM wells. In this paper, an extensive review of the available literature was done to study PC Pumps and the various advancements achieved through the years. Artificial lift selection methods were investigated and a comprehensive procedure enlisted to select the right type of lift which best suits the field/well.