Newly Developed, Highly Automated Apparatus for Rapid Evaluation of Stimulation Fluid Additives

摘要

This paper describes the development of a highly automated apparatus and customized software package to rapidly evaluate the performance of surfactant additives in dry gas shale reservoirs. A major challenge throughout the industry is the ability to reduce water saturation resulting from fluid leakoff into the formation matrix during stimulation operations. The new method presented in this paper to help identify the optimum surfactant for reducing post-treatment water saturation based on well-specific parameters. Conventional laboratory evaluation of stimulation fluid additives typically involves coreflow studies, which are excessively time consuming and have poor reproducibility as a result of core-to-core inconsistencies. The focus of this endeavor was to develop a statistically relevant method that can use drill cuttings samples and measures surfactant additive performance data with high confidence and reproducibility for the tested formation material. Data analysis included analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by post-hoc Tukey honest significant difference (HSD) range testing. Test apparatus results were also corroborated with coreflow studies. Eight surfactant additives were evaluated in the presence of four different fracture fluid formulations and formation samples. For each surfactant/fracturing fluid/formation test matrix, the software was able to rank surfactants performance based on the volume of fracturing fluid displaced from a column pack normalized to the pressure gradient. No individual surfactant performed best more than 40% of the time within this test series, and the surfactant-laden formulations always statistically outperformed the nonsurfactant control. The results imply that the addition of surfactants results in increased treatment fluid load recovery. Reservoir simulations were performed to investigate the effects of increased load recovery and depth of invasion of fracturing fluids on hydrocarbon production. The simulation results confirmed the assumption that minimal invasion of treatment fluid into the matrix of the formation resulting from increased load recovery does improve hydrocarbon production. The simulation data also suggest this observed hydrocarbon production improvement is particularly prevalent in the early time/cleanup period of the life of the well. A key feature and novelty of the apparatus is the ability to evaluate numerous surfactants in series and the potential to perform up to 24 individual tests in an 8-hour shift. The results presented in this paper showcase the utility of the newly developed apparatus, which offers a new method for rapid customization of stimulation fluids.