Enhancing and Sustaining Well Production: Granite Wash, Texas Panhandle

Ingram, Stephen; Rothkopf, Brian W.; Stevenson, Christopher M.; Paterniti, Isaac Samuel; Conner, J.M.; Pauls, Richard

doi:10.2118/106531-ms

Cited by 10 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 14 publications

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“…The use of microemulsions, as applied in fracture stimulation (particularly in tight-gas and shale formations) has been the subject of several articles over the past several years (Ingram et al 2007;Penny et al 2006;Paterniti 2009). Typically included is an academic definition of a microemulsion that will read something like: an isotropic dispersion of oil, water, surfactant, and sometimes cosolvent or cosolvent that is thermodynamically stable.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing Microemulsion/Surfactant Packages for Shale and Tight-Gas Reservoirs

Rickman

Jaripatke

2010

All Days

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Success of the stimulation treatments in low-permeability, gas-producing formations largely depends on the fracture-face damage mitigation and cleanup of stimulation fluids from the propped fracture and formation matrix. These factors become even more critical in deep, conventional gas reservoirs, unconventional coalbed-methane reservoirs, shale, and ultralow-permeability tight-gas sands. Traditionally, in the industry, the focus for the success of the stimulation-fluid cleanup had been placed on conductivity damage of the proppant pack. It has more recently been realized that gas recovery and post-fracturing treatment results can be strongly dependent on other factors like wettability issues, phase trappings, water/gas relative permeability, and saturation states. The efficiency with which the fluids get extruded from the matrix or from the hydraulic fractures to the wellbore gets greatly diminished if conventional stimulation fluids are used without appropriate surfactant systems, leading to longer ROI times. Many microemulsion-surfactant systems have and are currently being developed based on the study of factors affecting the dynamicdisplacement behavior through the application of surfactants. Many so-called optimized treatments are not designed to adequately deal with all the issues within a particular well or reservoir and might actually create or cause more damage than originally existed.This paper describes laboratory test methods, comparisons, and results used for evaluating and selecting surfactants for deep, gas-bearing formations, such as shales and tight sandstones. Data presented here will aid operators in choosing the best surfactant/microemulsion package for optimizing hydrocarbon production.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing Microemulsion/Surfactant Packages for Shale and Tight-Gas Reservoirs

Rickman

Jaripatke

2010

All Days

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Sand control completion using in-situ resin consolidation

Nguyen

Sanders

2022

Flow Assurance

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Sustaining Well Productivity

Weaver

Nguyen

Ingram

2007

International Oil Conference and Exhibition in Mexico

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Surface modification agents (SMAs) and their coating onto proppant have been used in thousands of wells in the past 10 years resulting in significant improvement in productivity in terms of production rates and duration. In a recent field study1 involving more than 100 well stimulations, these SMAs were found to dramatically enhance the recovery of aqueous-based fracturing fluids during well cleanup following the fracturing treatments. This paper describes how a simple modification to proppant surfaces resulted in these dramatic post-frac well cleanups and subsequent well productivity. A comparison of laboratory results along with actual case histories will help explain the significant improvement in hydrocarbon production observed in fracture stimulated wells using SMA-coated proppant. Introduction More than 10 years ago, the concept of coating proppant with a surface modification agent (SMA) to stabilize the proppant pack and formation/proppant pack interface was introduced. Since that time, widespread use of this technology to sustain fracture conductivity has demonstrated excellent results. Numerous papers2–5 have described the mechanism by which SMA materials function to provide sustained conductivity, and in some cases, enhanced conductivity. Initially, the SMA material was described as a "nonhardening resin manufactured from renewable resources."3 A particularly useful SMA was made6 from "tall oil," a byproduct of the paper and pulp industry; this SMA combined surface activity with a polymeric material. The polymer is insoluble in both water and oil, but is soluble in a few highly oxygenated solvents, which makes it particularly suited for treating proppant. It is described as thermally stable, with a polar polyamide backbone with long, pendent fatty chains. The polar polyamide portion of the polymer tends to adsorb strongly on mineral surfaces while the hydrophobic fatty chains tend to extend away from the mineral surface. This leaves the mineral surface highly hydrophobic, hydrophobic and sticky to the touch. The SMA coating on proppant changes the interaction of the proppant with its surroundings in several ways. The first is to cause the surfaces to become tacky, causing a significant decrease in the tendency of proppant to flow out of a fracture. It has been reported7 that even with fracture closure, there is a significant tendency for proppant to flow back, and that this tendency increases with closure stress. In fact, the application of SMA has been shown2 to increase the critical fluid flow rate required to initiate proppant flowback by 3 to 5 times that of uncoated proppant. Proppant pack stability is important in many cases. High stress, coupled with stress cycling, can lead to proppant crushing, and subsequent migration of fines formed by proppant crushing and bridging off, eventually plugging the pack's permeability. The tendency for crushed proppant fines to migrate is mitigated by the application of SMA to the surface of proppant as it is used in the fracture treatment. The same application of SMA to proppant can also be utilized to prevent formation fines from migrating into the proppant pack, thereby conserving the effective fracture width. This application has found widespread use in poorly consolidated formations completed using frac-pack completions. In these applications, greater than normal fracture conductivity can be achieved by using a proppant size larger than normally recommended to prevent formation fines invasion as the SMA-coated proppant traps the formation fines at the formation/fracture pack interface.3 Application of SMA-coated proppant in coalbed methane producers was found to provide long-term coal fines control.8 Without SMA, typical fracture stimulation treatments in these applications required frequent refracturing. In the SMA treatment's ability to affect fracture sustainability, it was observed that the load recovery from the frac treatment, and the dewatering process, were both significantly accelerated. Coating SMA onto off-spec, small-sized proppants for use in water fracture stimulation treatments has in some areas delivered acceptable conductivity, even with these poorer grades of proppant. It was further observed that significantly improved fracture fluid recovery was obtained during these treatments. This paper presents field and lab data demonstrating that coating proppant with SMA can impact fracture fluid recovery and suggests some possible mechanisms to support these observations.

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Enhancing and Sustaining Well Production: Granite Wash, Texas Panhandle

Cited by 10 publications

References 14 publications

Optimizing Microemulsion/Surfactant Packages for Shale and Tight-Gas Reservoirs

Optimizing Microemulsion/Surfactant Packages for Shale and Tight-Gas Reservoirs

Sand control completion using in-situ resin consolidation

Sustaining Well Productivity

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