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Dept of Metallurgical & Materials Engineering, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Suratkal
2
Dept of Mining Engineering, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Suratkal
Email: puthalathkannur@yahoo.co.in
Abstract: When a reservoir of oil or gas is discovered under the ground, and reservoir engineers and drilling
engineers are employed to tap that reservoir, often, they inadvertently damage it. Formation damage is an
undesirable operational and economic problem that can occur during the various phases of oil and gas recovery from
subsurface reservoirs including production, drilling, stimulation techniques and work over operations. The formation
of a reservoir can be damaged by unforeseen rock, fluid, particle interactions etc and alterations caused by reservoir
fluid, flow, and stress conditions. For example, the chemicals that the engineers have injected into the reservoir, the
drilling mud used in drilling, or even by stress from the drill bit itself may cause formation damage. Control and
remediation of formation damage are among the most important issues to be resolved for efficient exploitation of
petroleum reservoirs and cost management. Formation damage seems to be inevitable and whether formation
damage can be prevented, removed economically, or must be accepted as the price for drilling and producing a well
will depend upon many factors. In this paper a general characteristics of formation damage during various stages of
oil exploration are discussed.
Keywords: formation damage, stimulation techniques, acidizing, hydraulic fracturing, permeability impairment,
skin damage.
1.0 Introduction:
Formation damage is an undesirable operational and
economic problem that can occur during the various
phases of oil and gas recovery from subsurface
reservoirs including production, drilling, hydraulic
fracturing, and work over operations. Formation damage
assessment, control, and remediation are among the
most important issues to be resolved for efficient
exploitation of hydrocarbon reservoirs. Formation
damage indicators include permeability impairment,
skin damage, and decrease of well performance [1]. As
expressed by Porter (1989) and Mungan (1989),
formation damage is not necessarily reversible. Thus, it
is better to avoid formation damage than try to restore
formation permeability using costly methods with
uncertain successes in many cases. It is essential to
develop experimental and analytical methods for
understanding and preventing and/or controlling
formation damage in oil and gas bearing formations.
The laboratory experiments are important steps in
reaching understanding of the physical basis of
formation damage phenomena. From this experimental
basis, realistic models which allow extrapolation outside
the scaleable range may be constructed. Current
techniques for reservoir characterization by history
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Clay swelling
bacteria
Particulate
plugging
wettability
Water
blocking
Formation
Damage
Fines
migration
emulsions
Asphaltene&
Sludge
deposition
Scale &
Inorganic
precipitates
Figure 1: Major Formation Damage Mechanism Associated with Fluid Invasion due to Borehole Filtration[2]
For many years the drilling industry focuses on
practices, which gave high rates of penetration and
minimum wellbore problems. The cementing industry
focuses most of the time on designing slurries, which
will not bridge up or prematurely set within the casing.
As a consequence, drilling and cementing fluids were
often formulated to drill and cement the well cheaply
and quickly with little thought of the impact on well
productivity. Drilling department focus the design of
drilling fluid on volume and cost minimization. For the
cementing operation, special care is given for reducing
additive and spacer pre flush usage. The production
department has to deal with maximizing production.
These objectives are very often not complementary and
even sometimes opposite [3].
2.1.0 Formation Damage during Drilling:
Drilling is the first instance, in the life of a well, of
formation damage. It is the first well operation, which
brings formation in contact with foreign material. The
formation is exposed to drill bit and drilling mud during
drilling operations. To overcome inflow of formation
fluid and to lay down a thin, low permeability filter cake
on the walls of the hole, the pressure of the drilling mud
column must exceed the pore pressure by at least 200psi
[4]. The horizontal drilling requires more concern for
formation damage, as it makes the formation to be
exposed to mud for longer period requiring more time
drilling within the targeted productive formation than do
vertical wells. Under pressured reservoirs are also
significantly more susceptible to formation damage.
Reservoir Formation Damage during Various Phases of Oil and Gas Recovery
- An Overview
2.2.0 Formation Damage during Completion &
Workover Operations:
Poor completion and workover fluids and practices may
cause considerable damage to a formation long after the
formation was drilled, cemented and perforated. Many
forces tend to change the natural virgin permeability of
producing formation during initial completion and or
workover operations.
2.2.1 Perforating:
Perforating process initiates the flow of formation fluid
to the wellbore. Perforations are the entry point from the
formation to the wellbore, and all flow in a cased,
perforated completion must pass through these tunnels.
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Figure 4: Damage during Perforation due to Overbalance (From ONGC Data Files)
2.3.0 Formation Damage Due to Acidizing:
Acid reactions can produce several side effects which
can decrease formation permeability. During acid
treatment following mechanisms are responsible for
formation damage.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Fines migration
Reaction and precipitation
Sludge formation
Emulsion formation
Wettability alteration
Water block
Iron ion precipitation
Damage
during
Fracture
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Formation Damage Mechanisms during Various Phases of Oil and Gas Recovery and Their Remedial Measures [4]
Table 1:
Operation
Sl.
No
1
2
Drilling
3
4
1
Cementing
2
3
Perforation plugging
Polymer invasion
1
2
2
3
4
5
6
7
Scale deposition
Paraffin, wax & Asphaltene formation
Wettability alteration
Liquid block
Condensate banking
Emulsion generation
4
5
6
7
Production
3
Completion &
Workover
Sand control
Damage mechanism
Remedial measures
Matrix acidization,Perforation,
Hydraulic fracturing
Matrix acidization
Matrix acidization
Surfactant treatment, matrix
acidization
Matrix acidization,Perforation,
Hydraulic fracturing
Matrix acidization, Perforation
Matrix acidization
Acidization,Clay stabilization,
Acidization with foam based fluids
Acidization
Surfactant treatment, Matrix
acidization
Matrix acidization, Clay stabilization
Matrix acidization, Clay stabilization
Matrix acidization
Surfactant treatment, Matrix
acidization
Acidization
Acidization
Acidization, perforation
Deep penetrating acid treatment, Clay
stabilization
Acidization
Surfactant treatment, Solvent treatment
Surfactant treatment, Solvent treatment
Surfactant treatment
Hydraulic fracturing
Solvent/Demulsifier treatment
Reservoir Formation Damage during Various Phases of Oil and Gas Recovery
- An Overview
228
Table 2:
Operation
Acidizing
Hydraulic
fracturing
Water
injection and
different
EOR methods
Sl
No
1
2
3
4
1
Fines migration
Reaction and precipitation
Sludge formation
Emulsion formation
Solid plugging
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
Emulsion blocks
Water blocks
Rock wettability change
Solid invasion
Fine migration
Clay swelling
Clay deflocculation
5
6
7
8
9
Formation dissolution
Skim oil entrainment
Biologically induced impairment
Sand influx
Chemical adsorption /wettability
alterations
Formation of insoluble scales and
emulsifications
Precipitate formation
10
11
Damage mechanism
Remedial measures
Clay stabilization, Hydraulic fracturing
Hydraulic fracturing, Acidization
Solvent treatment
Surfactant treatment, solvent treatment
Refracturing with compatible fluids and
proppants
Surfactant treatment
Surfactant treatment
Surfactant treatment
Acidization, Hydraulic fracturing
Acidization,Clay stabilization treatment
High saline fluid
Surfactant treatment, Clay stabilization
treatment
Acidization, Hydraulic fracturing
Surfactant treatment
Biocide treatment
Sand consolidation treatment
Surfactant treatment
Surfactant treatment, Solvent treatment
Acidization
229
Reservoir Formation Damage during Various Phases of Oil and Gas Recovery
- An Overview
the mud invasion depth and observed that mud invasion
depth decreases with increasing overbalance pressure
until it reaches a critical pressure. Beyond that invasion
depth increases with overbalance pressure. Andreas et
al., 2010 [23] studied the permeability alterations
adjacent to the newly created fracture face. Sbai et al.,
2011 [24] developed a finite volume simulator to predict
the injectivity decline near CO2 injection wells and also
for production wells in the context of enhanced oil
recovery.
5. Conclusion:
Formation damage is an exciting, challenging, and
evolving field of research. It is an undesirable
operational and economic problem that can occur during
the various phases of oil and gas recovery from
subsurface reservoirs including production, drilling,
hydraulic fracturing, and workover operations.
Formation damage assessment, control, and remediation
are among the most important issues to be resolved for
efficient exploitation of hydrocarbon reservoirs. Such
damage is caused by various adverse processes,
including chemical, physical, biological, and thermal
interactions of formation and fluids, and deformation of
formation under stress and fluid shear. Formation
damage indicators include permeability impairment,
skin damage, and decrease of well performance. The
properly designed experimental and analytical
techniques can help understanding, diagnosis,
evaluation, prevention and controlling of formation
damage in oil and gas reservoirs.
References:
[1] Faruk Civan, (2007), Reservoir Formation Damage,
Fundamentals, Modeling, Assessment, and
Mitigation, Second Edition, Gulf Publishing
Company, Book Division, P.O.Box 2608, Houston,
Texas, pp. 5-30
[2] Porter K.E, (1989), An overview of formation
damage, Journal of Petroleum Technology, pp.780786
[3] Thomas O.Allen,Alan P.Roberts,(2007), Production
operations, Well completions, Work over and
stimulation, Volume 2, second addition, Oil & Gas
Consultants International Inc, Tulsa, Oklahoma, pp.
89-111.
[4] Manual on Formation Damage, (2006), Institute of
oil & gas production Technology, ONGC Ltd,
Panvel, India.
[5] Training manual on production operations for nonproduction engineers, (2006), Institute of oil & gas
production Technology, ONGC Ltd, Panvel, India,
pp.7.1- 7.15.
[6] Glen E.E, Slusser M.L and Huilt J.L, (1952)
Factors affecting well productivity (Part I & II)
TransAIME, pp 195.
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