Experimental Investigation of Formation Damage Reduction: Mud Cake Removal and Mud Filtration Treatment using Ultrasonic Wave Radiation

Abstract

Interactions of reservoir with drilling and completion fluids, mud cake and mud filtration, lead to formation permeability damages which result in reduction of production rate. For increasing the production rate and treating the formation damage, normally Matrix Acidizing and Hydraulic Fracturing treatment are used. Although hydraulic fracturing and matrix acidizing are effective operations, they have some critical issues. For instance, they need some specialized fluids that require the petroleum industry to spend over millions of dollars per year for this treatment.Applications of ultrasonic waves have been widely developed in petroleum processes due to its significant positive effects. In this study, wellbore stimulation using ultrasonic wave radiation has been experimentally investigated. The experiment is categorized in two steps: At first, the effect of sonication on mud cake removal has been studied and next, the effect of ultrasonic wave on mud filtration treatment has been surveyed. Glass beads ranging from 70 to 100 mesh sizes were packed as the porous media and three kinds of water based mud in different weights were used as the samples for making the damage on glass bead pack to simulate the reservoir formation damage. Various ultrasonic wave intensities have been examined with different radiation times in order to find the optimum radiation time. The results show that at early time of ultrasonic exposing for mud filtration treatment, the permeability decreases by pervading the mud filtration in porous media while at the late time it increases, which shows that ultrasonic radiation removed mud cake form porous media and improved permeability. Finally, an optimum time obtained and it has been proved that ultrasonic radiation can increases the permeability of damaged zone.

Recent applications of ultrasonic waves in improved oil recovery: A review of techniques and results

“…Ultrasound has also been used together with other techniques to fight formation damage caused by drilling and completion fluids [34], pore blockage by mud cake and mud particles [35] and fines [36], and partially hydrolyzed Polyacrylamide (PHPAM)-induced formation damage [37]. Overall, it was found that ultrasound enhanced the applied techniques and improved pore permeability [34], [36], [37].…”