A Successful Fines Stabiliser Pilot Application in Arresting Severe Production Decline and Prolong Well Life

Abstract

Fines migration is a recognized as one source of formation damage in oil and gas production wells. A newly fine stabilizers chemical was developed and applied to prolong oil well productivity by adhering the migrating fines to the pore surfaces and reducing the tendency for mobilization as observed in the laboratory. The paper presents the successful pilot application and monitoring process of newly developed fine stabilizer in an oil well with has a history of rapid decline after several times of stimulation. A screening process to identify pilot well was carried out into well "C". The well was natural flow for almost 2 decades but in last 8 years, it showed a sharp oil productivity decline after several times workover (re-perforation). A series of experiments were performed to identify the root cause of the rapid decline of the oil well and concluded due to migrating clays. The newly fines stabilization chemical was developed which has a purpose to prevent detachment of those fines and prolong the formation structure integrity by keeping the fines stuck on the rock surface. The workflow breakdown design structure for injection and monitoring were carried out to ensure the well achieve the agreed objective that was to increase back production by reperforation job and to reduce production decline rate by 90% for the first 6 months and 30% afterwards. As a first pilot, well "C" has the main target to delay the production decline after re-perforation due to fines migration as concluded based on root cause analysis of formation damage from comprehensive laboratory experiments. The novel inhouse fines stabilization chemical was introduced as damage remedial by neutralizing fines migration through microflocs and coagulated fines as solid. It was injected near the wellbore around 4-5 ft. and monitored for 6 months. The sampling was taken regularly to measure produced clay and sands and compared with the pre-treatment results. The particle size measurement showed if the produced particles decreased significantly. The post-treatment of fine stabilizer chemical shows that it can prolong oil well productivity by delaying the decline rate to 1.5%/month for 6 months monitoring period and even stable over 1 years, which means exceed the expectation. The successful result of well treatment using newly fine stabilizers chemical has unlocked additional oil production and prolong well life.