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Well Stimulation

Acid Fracturing
a Carbonate Reservoir
The Khuff formation is ideal for acid
fracturing because of the heterogeneous
nature of the formation. Several acid
types were used to fracture this tight,
dolomitic formation. A large database of
acid-fracture treatments (more than 70
wells) was used to investigate acid/rock
interactions to determine the relationship between lithology and acid type.
The full-length paper correlates the acid
treatment to openhole logs, core petrophysical data, and flowback samples
collected after acid-fracture treatments.
Introduction
The Khuff formation is a deep carbonate gas
reservoir that consists of dolomite and limestone sections underlying the giant Ghawar
oil field in the eastern region of Saudi
Arabia. The Khuff formation can have
streaks of shale, anhydrite, or nonpermeable
intervals within the layer that may constitute no-flow zones or fracture barriers. This
heterogeneity of the Khuff formation makes
it an ideal candidate for acid fracturing even
though the reservoir temperature is between
280 and 300F.
Acid fracturing the Khuff formation has
resulted in the high gas-production rate
required to start up the two new gas plants
built for the Hawiyah and Haradh fields. In
the beginning, the acid-fracture program
consisted of pumping a viscous pad (hightemperature borate-gelled) followed by
28 wt% in-situ-gelled acid, and then a
closed-fracture acid stage of 28 wt%
hydrochloric (HCl) acid pumped below the
closure pressure. Typically, the acid volumes
ranged from 1,500 to 2,000 gal/ft. The
results of the treatments were good, but optimization of the early treatments was difficult
because of unavailability of long-term production data. Emulsified acids, in-situ-gelled
acids, formic acid/HCl, and viscoelastic acids
were introduced later with varying results.
These acid formulations have resulted in
high initial gas rates, but in some wells gas
rates declined to less than 60% of the original cleanup rate within 6 months of production. In an attempt to offset this decline,
Saudi Aramco began optimizing acid-fracturing treatments on the basis of reservoir

JULY 2004

characteristics such as permeability, porosity,

and fluid leakoff. This optimization process
has been limited to fluid selection, treatment
volume, and number of stages.
Stimulation Objectives
Acid fracturing is one of the fundamental
ways to stimulate carbonate reservoirs. The
main factors contributing to improved production are etched-fracture conductivity
and acid-penetration distance. Acid-penetration distance is a function of leakoff rate,
fracture width, pumping rate, and volume.
Fracture conductivity is a function of effective etched width at a certain position along
the fracture that remains open and communicating with the well after closure occurs.
When a fracture treatment is well designed
and correctly implemented in the field, the
benefits in terms of gas production and
recovery time are readily experienced. A
stimulated well produces at a high rate at
early times and achieves ultimate gas recovery faster than an unstimulated well.
Current Acids
Currently, two acid programs are used in the
Khuff formation. One consists of in-situgelled acid with stages of pad. The other consists of emulsified acid with in-situ-gelled
acid in the later stages. Both treatments use
closed-fracture acid (28 wt% HCl) pumped
below the closure pressure of the formation.
Analysis of Flowback Samples
Chemical analysis of the fluids produced
following acid treatment has been used to
evaluate and improve acid treatments performed in several fields. To assess the performance of the acid-fracture treatments,
samples of well flowback were collected and
concentrations of key ions measured.
Calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) concentrations were measured by inductively
coupled argon plasma emission spectroscopy. Acid concentration was determined by use of acid/base titration.
Dolomite and Calcite From
Flowback Samples
Flowback samples can be used to determine
the nature of the treated zone and type of

This article, written by Assistant Technology Editor Karen Bybee, contains

highlights of paper SPE 84130, Acid
Fracturing of a Gas Carbonate Reservoir: The Impact of Acid Type and
Lithology on Fracture Half-Length and
Width, by K.M. Bartko, SPE, H.A.
Nasr-El-Din, SPE, Z. Rahim, SPE, and
G.A. Al-Muntasheri, Saudi Aramco,
prepared for the 2003 SPE Annual
Technical Conference and Exhibition,
Denver, 58 October.

carbonate mineral dissolved by the acid.

One method to determine acid reaction
with the rock is to examine the Ca/Mg
weight ratio in the flowback samples.
The target zone contains calcite (CaCO3)
and dolomite [CaMg(CO3)2]. The main
source of Mg in the formation rock is
dolomite. The weight ratio of Ca to Mg in
pure dolomite is 1.67. The concentrations of
Ca and Mg in the flowback sample can be
used to determine the average calcite and
dolomite content in the treated zone. All
acids used in the fracturing treatments were
prepared with low-salt-content water. Acids
used in the fracturing treatments did not contain significant amounts of Ca or Mg ions.
The first few measurements were excluded
because they represented the overflush. The
number of these samples was determined on
the basis of the concentration of chloride in
the flowback samples. This procedure can be
illustrated by examining the results obtained
from Well SA-1, where zone B was acid fractured. The first few samples contained low
chloride ion. These samples represent the
overflush. The next samples had much higher Ca concentrations. The source of the Ca is
the calcium carbonate particles used during
drilling the target zone. Following this initial peak, the Ca concentration drops to a
fairly constant value. The Ca/Mg weight
ratio indicates that the average calcite in the
formation is 43.2 wt%, and the rest is
dolomite. A similar trend was noted in
wells where zone C was acid fractured. In
these cases, the Ca/Mg ratio indicated that
the average calcite content was 60 wt%.

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uated in several different ways. Variable

combinations that
were
investigated
consisted of porosity/height, initial production rate, total
fluid volume, minimum and maximum
pump rate, net reservoir height, acid type,
and lithology. The
best
correlation
found included the
Fig. 1PI as a function of acid type and lithology.
productivity index
(PI). The PI then was normalized for differData
Acid-Fracture Data. The acid-fracture data ences in reservoir quality by dividing PI by
consisted of acid type, acid volume, and the permeability-thickness product, kh. The
maximum and minimum pump rate. The value of h for the wells examined varied
data excluded the pad stages used to initiate from 30 to 200 ft. This procedure assumes
the fracture and the intermediate stages that wellbore radius and skin after treatment
used to keep the fracture open. The 10,000 are constant for all wells. The PI/kh ratio
gal of 28 wt% HCl closed-fracture acid stage measures performance of the acid-fracture
was excluded from the analysis because all treatments, including poor acid coverage in
treatments used the same volume and con- large gross intervals.
centration. A spearhead acid is used in some
wells to remove drilling-fluid filter cake. Pump Rate. Maximizing the pump rate
This acid was not included because its func- during an acid-fracture treatment results in
tion was to remove external damage, and, as deeper acid penetration. In a typical Khuff
a result, it did not affect the permeability of acid-fracture treatment, the pump rate is
continuously monitored along with the
the formation significantly.
The following acid systems were evaluated. nonreactive pad stages to keep the bottomhole pressure greater than the closure pres 15 wt% HCl/9 wt% formic acid.
sure. It is evident when maximum pump
In-situ-gelled acid.
Emulsified acid with in-situ-gelled acid rate is plotted against PI/kh that higher maximum pumping rates increase the producstages.
Emulsified acid with viscoelastic acid tivity of Khuff gas wells.
stages.
The emulsified-acid volume was based on Acid Volume. It has been observed that acid
acid volume. The diesel volume (30 vol% of type has a significant effect on the created
the total acid volume) was excluded. The fracture geometry either by retarding acid
total acid volume included the later stages reaction with the carbonate rock or by
reducing the leakoff rate of acid into the forof in-situ-gelled acid.
mation. Recently, there has been some eviReservoir Data. Reservoir data were obtained dence that viscoelastic acids can improve
by evaluating the openhole logs for lithology, fracture conductivity by reducing polymer
determining the net reservoir height, and cal- residue left in the formation.
When acid volume per net reservoir
culating permeability on the basis of the Khuff
height for the three acid types used in the
porosity/permeability transform.
Khuff formation is plotted against PI/kh, the
Production Data. The data used in this optimum total acid volume is 1,000 to
study consisted of the initial production flow 1,500 gal/ft. When only in-situ-gelled acid
rate after cleanup. Final cleanup rate was data were plotted, optimum acid volume
measured when the well produced less than was 800 to 1,200 gal/ft of perforations. For
10 vol% basic sediment and water. A emulsified acid, the optimum volume was
6-month rate was used as steady-state rate. 650 to 1,000 gal/ft of perforations.
The data from nearly 70 wells were analyzed.
Log Lithology and Acid Type
The performance of each acid was evaluated
Analysis of Acid-Fracture Treatments
Because of the vast amount of data and the on the basis of lithology type. This was done
uncertainty of log-quality interpretation and by comparing log-based lithology to the PI
reservoir characteristics, the data were eval- and PI/kh of each acid type. Fig. 1 shows a

52

Fig. 2PI/kh vs. flowback mineralogy and acid type.

performance comparison of acid types to

lithology. The data clearly show that emulsified acid is superior in a dolomitic lithology,
which is different from what was originally
expected. Laboratory results along with an
earlier study indicated that emulsified acid
should perform better in calcite rock. This
study found that the in-situ gelled acids
worked better in a calcite or calcite/dolomitic
environment than in a dolomitic environment. The HCl/formic acid system appeared
to perform better in a calcite formation than
in a dolomitic or calcite/dolomite formation.
When the acids are plotted against PI/kh,
there is little difference in emulsified-acid
performance in different lithologies, and the
HCl/formic acid performed significantly better on calcite than on the other lithologies.
Evaluation of acid type based on acidflowback (Fig. 2) analysis indicated emulsified acid preferentially dissolved dolomitic
rock. However, the data also indicate that
when the emulsified acid preferentially dissolved dolomite, the PI/kh was poor. The
single emulsified-acid data point where
there is a high percentage of calcite corresponds to an improved rate. Lithology did
not affect performance of the in-situ-gelled
acid and the HCl/formic acid system.
Conclusions
1. There is evidence that maximizing
pump rate will result in higher initial well
performance.
2. Emulsified acid performed better than
in-situ-gelled acid.
3. Emulsified-acid performance depends
on the characteristics of the acid.
4. The HCl/formic acid mixture performed the best in a calcite lithology. JPT

For a limited time, the full-length paper

is available free to SPE members at
www.spe.org/jpt. The paper has not
been peer reviewed.

JULY 2004