Use of a Salt-Tolerant Friction Reducer Improves Production in Utica Completions

Abstract

As longer laterals are drilled in the Utica to maximize acreage cover, the stimulation treatments must still establish high pumping rates to effectively treat multiple clusters even within the stages out near the toe area of the lateral. Overcoming this additional pipe friction as well as using various water sources of varying salinity (up to and including 300,000 ppm) with only one friction reducer (FR) polymer product is now possible. An additional benefit of this new salt-tolerant polymer (STP) as the FR additive is its ability to self-degrade with time and temperature to provide significant viscosity reduction for improving well cleanup after the treatment. This paper discusses use of this new STP to successfully place 131 stages in the Utica on a three-well pad in Ohio using various percentages of brine water with the freshwater supply. This is contrasted with traditional FR and guar used in 61 stages on the same pad and 39 stages on an offset pad. The ability to continue operations in the subfreezing temperatures of winter, coupled with the ability to reuse produced water, provides additional benefits to field operations. The use of a single component STP as the friction reduction provider also reduces inventory stock and simplifies on-location quality assurance of material usage. Analytical production simulation confirms improvement in productivity index (PI) and estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) forecast.

Polyacrylamide degradation and its implications in environmental systems

“…The hydrolyzed form of polyacrylamide (HPAM), a co-polymer of acrylamide and acrylic acid, is the most widely used anionic PAM in oil and gas development as well as in soil conditioning. 1,9,12,21 The most common commercial PAM formulation in the oil and gas industry is a water-in-oil emulsion, where the polymer is dissolved in the aqueous phase which is encapsulated by a continuous oil phase stabilized by surfactants. 1 High MW PAM is widely applied in unconventional natural gas development as a "friction reducer" to minimize frictional losses during pumping.…”

“…[25][26][27] The drag reduction properties increase with increasing polymer MW due to the more pronounced stretching of the very long polymer chains. 7,28 Anionic polyacrylamides perform better as drag reducers in a fresh water environment 9 ; cationic PAM has shown enhanced performance at high salinity 1 due to the reduced electrostatic repulsion from electrolyte shielding present with anionic species. 29 We reviewed and summarized information from 750 fractured wells across six states from content available on FracFocus.org 30 (Table S1); 98% of the wells utilized PAM-based friction reducers with the majority of these using anionic forms of the polymer.…”

Effect of polyacrylamide friction reducer on calcite dissolution rate at 25 °C and implication for hydraulic fracturing

“…The polymers utilised in hydraulic fracturing operations depend on the environmental conditions. Anionic PAM have a better performance in a fresh water environment (Sun 2014;Rodvelt et al, 2015), whereas cationic PAM have demonstrated an enhanced performance at high salinity scenario (Rimassa et al, 2009;Nguyen et al, 2018). The potential advantages provided by friction reducer also include reduced chemical usage, fewer environmental concerns, and decreased water consumption (Geri et al, 2019).…”

Characterization of ultrahigh molar mass polyelectrolytes by capillary electrophoresis

“…High to ultrahigh molar mass (> MDa) anionic polyacrylamides and their analogues are polyelectrolytes which are widely used as flocculent in wastewater treatment [1], as soil conditioner [2], as drag reducer [3], and as viscosity enhancer in Enhanced Oil Recovery for flooding of trapped crude oil from the reservoir [4]. In the oil field application, however, loss of flooding efficiency often arises from shear sensitive chain scissions in porous media and rheological performance deterioration provoked by salinity and high temperature [5,6].…”