SPE 151797

Used Approaches for Carbonates Acidizing Offshore Brazil

A.Z.I. Pereira, M.G.F. da Silva, L.C.A. da Paixao, T.J.L. de Oliveira, P.D. Fernandes, Petrobras

Copyright 2012, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE International Symposium and Exhibition on Formation Damage Control held in Lafayette, Louisiana, USA, 1517 February 2012.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its
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Abstract
Although the new Brazilian carbonate reservoir discoveries represent a huge undertaking, on acidizing terms, many of the
challenges faced nowadays are very similar to those found in the old carbonate reservoir fields. Problems like high
permeability contrast, heterogeneous porosity distribution and long production intervals have their complexity increased by the
completion and production needs. Despite all these problems, the use of conventional approaches, applying basic techniques,
has produced good results leaving some time to the development of more specific solutions, once there are still some
limitations to overcome. Among those conventional techniques, pilot zones associated with chemical diversion have been
intensively used although mechanical diversion has been limited by the completion arrangement.
This paper describes acidizing techniques that have been applied on Brazilian offshore carbonate fields, some observed
problems and present some trends related to the development of new acidizing techniques.
Introduction
For almost two decades, Petrobras main oilfields were represented by sandstones reservoirs, however, despite its
significant previous experience with carbonates, the discovery of the gigantic sandstone formations changed the Company
focus, producing an intense development in sand control techniques and chemical treatments for those kind of rocks, while
carbonates, and their correspondent chemical treatments, were considered secondary objectives. Nowadays, Petrobras is facing
an opposite scenario, once, without stopping the sandstone reservoir technology development, it has to deal with an even
greater challenge: develop the new massive carbonate fields.
Chemically speaking, carbonates are easy to treat when compared to sandstones, once they do not present secondary
reactions to worry about. Also, as complex as they are, they never have the mineralogical diversity of sandstones so, most of
the time, simple acid composition can be used to successfully stimulate them. However, the easiness with which they are
chemically attacked creates great difficulties to achieve long interval coverage during an acidizing treatment, once the
permeability, greatly improved by the contact with the acid, results in a strong tendency to concentrate the treatment flow in
the formation sections previously exposed to the treatment fluids (Ziauddin and Bize, 2007). To circumvent this problem,
assuring the best possible treatment diversion, several placement techniques and diverting chemicals have been developed over
the years, such as:
a) Placement techniques:
-

Sealing balls
Coiled tubing jetting
Straddle packers
Bullheading
Diverting washpipes

b) Chemical agents:
-

Suspended solids
Vicosifing agents
Crosslinkable fluids
Foamed fluids

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Depending on the circumstances, once they are also influenced by the well assembly and well flow path restrictions, the
available placement techniques and diverting agents can be combined in many ways to achieve the best possible acidizing
performance. Fortunately, despite those formations complexity, the offshore Brazilian carbonate behavior, in a pre-salt or in a
post-salt environment, has proved, so far, to be relatively forgiving from the acidizing point of view and the available
treatment methods have been successful in treating them.
Used fluids and placement techniques
In terms of fluids and placement techniques, distinct approaches can be observed depending on the well objective. For
instance, if a well is just to be tested, as for exploratory purposes, it is desirable to use a minimum amount or even no acid to
treat the formation, once large acid quantity normally lead to a long cleaning time for the well to reach the test conditions and
also results in heavy fluid loss that usually takes a lot of time to be controlled. In this way, exploratory and test wells are
treated with minimum acid volumes, just to remove the perforation damage. Additionally, in an attempt to avoid the acid
treatment, some of the exploratory wells are subjected to underbalanced or dynamic underbalanced perforation, which has
presented limited results when compared to the light acid jobs.
The conventional job sequence is simple, as presented below:
-

Run coiled tubing with jetting nozzles to the perforated interval

Displace acid until an amount, 5 to 10 bbl, came out of the coiled tubing

Close the annulus between the workstring and the coiled tubing

Jetting the interval alternating with the acid system and diverting agents while moving the coiled tubing throughout the
interval

Two kinds of fluids have been used for this procedure:

-

Single phase viscoelastic acid system

Viscosified acid alternated with crosslinkable acid pads

Normally solvents are not used and the treatment displacement is made with diesel or brine, depending on the post
operational needs. Nevertheless, there are ongoing studies to evaluate the advantages of adding solvents to the acidizing
design, especially in pre-salt operations, in an attempt to achieve further results improvement.
Because of the coiled tubing limitations, the acidizing jobs performed in exploratory and test wells sometimes present
lacking of zonal coverage, despite achieving the desired performance for testing, that normally results in a request for a
complementary bullheading operation. Even so, once the job objective in exploratory and test wells is not to maximize the well
productivity, the bullheading is performed with a limited amount of acid, avoiding operational problems such as heavy fluid
losses in the subsequent operations, like well abandonment, or time consuming well clean up.
Despite the general preference for underbalanced TCP (tubing conveyed perforating) deep penetration perforations, with
12 spf (shots per foot) in the exploratory wells, perforations on test wells have been performed in overbalance conditions. So
far, the observed results do not favor any kind of perforation method but have evidenced the need for an acidizing job to
generate a good correlation between the formation permeability and production logs profiles. On the other hand, for field
development, the wells are normally fully equipped for production prior to the acid jobs, so, in order to avoid fluid loss during
the completion process, due to safety concerns, the perforation have been done in overbalanced conditions, with deep
penetration charges at 12 spf. Performing an acidizing job through completion equipments have brought additional concerns to
the acid diversion, especially in packed intervals. One way to overcome this situation has been applying one traditional
approach, creating an injection pilot zone at the base of the perforated interval. This has been performed in two different
conditions:
1) For the unpacked zones (Fig 1):
a) Running the coiled tubing to the bottom of the interval and spotting a small amount of acid in the lower third part of the
perforations, forming a pilot zone, followed by a bullheading of the main acid treatment with viscosified acid alternated
with crosslinkable acid pads or using just a single phase viscoelastic acid system.
b) Running a diverting washpipe, spotting some acid through this equipment to establish an initial injectivity and, again,
bullheading with viscosified acid alternated with crosslinkable acid pads or using just a single phase viscoelastic acid
system.

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Fig. 1 Placement techniques examples for unpacked zones: Left - Coiled tubing acid spotting and bullheading; Right Diverting washpipes spotting and bullheading.
2) For the packed zones (Fig 2):
The well is equipped with a sliding sleeve at the bottom of the perforations and another sliding sleeve at the top of the
interval. The treatment is performed using the following approaches:
a) Using the same placement technique applied in the unpacked zones, a small amount of acid is spotted through the
sliding sleeve of the highest permeability interval with the coiled tubing, to create the pilot zone. The main treatment is
then, bullheaded through the sliding sleeve of the lowest permeability interval, using viscosified acid alternated with
crosslinkable acid pads or using just a single phase viscoelastic acid system.
b) Recently, studies have shown that the treatment can be directly bullheaded if both sliding sleeves are kept open at the
same time, avoiding the use of the coiled tubing. For those wells completed in two zones, the placement design has
taken advantage of the treatment performed in the lower unpacked zone, using it as a pilot zone to direct the acid to the
bottom of the packed interval. As the acid reach the upper interval, the lower zone is then mechanically isolated before
performing the treatment.

Fig. 2 Placement techniques examples for packed zones: Left - Coiled tubing acid spotting and bullheading; Right Using
the unpacked zone as a pilot zone and bullheading, simultaneously, through both upper and lower sliding sleeves.
3) Horizontal well approach:
Since in horizontal wells all issues related to diversion seem to increase its complexity in one order of magnitude (Jouti et
al., 2011), there still no consensus about what is the best way to treat them, however, two main approaches have been used:
a) A combination between a diverting liner and a pilot zone, in which a liner with a designed number of perforations is set
in the open hole and coiled tubing is used to create a pilot zone at the toe of the horizontal section, followed by the
bullheading of the treatment using the previously mentioned fluid sequence (1).
b) A combination between a conventionally perforated liner and diverting washpipes as in vertical and deviated wells (Fig 3).

SPE 151797

Fig. 3 Placement techniques examples for horizontal wells: Top: Diverting washpipes and bullheading; Botton: Diverting
liner and bullheading.
In terms of horizontal wells, the diverting liner has presented variable results, therefore, new studies are being conducted to
evaluate the efficiency of that placement technique. On the other hand, the second method, diverting washpipes, has presented
very good results, but it forces to deal with heavy fluid loss during the acidizing process and, although being a variation of the
method of choice for treating horizontal gravel packs in the last decade (Pereira et al., 2007 and Da Silva et al., 2004) and
despite all safety measures adopted, it is still an uncomfortable process. In this manner, it can be said that acidizing carbonate
formations on horizontal wells is still a process under development.
Additionally, a simple bullheading, following a pilot zone created with coiled tubing, was performed in a well in which
operational limitations prevented the use of the diverting washpipes. Unfortunately, the results achieved with this operation
were inconclusive in terms of zonal coverage.
Current acidizing data
Normally, Petrobras express the formation damage in terms of Damage Ratio (DR) that can be calculated from the
following expressions:

DR = (P E Pwf

) m[log(k t / c r ) 3,23]
0

2
t w

DR = ( P E Pwf ) ( P E Pwf PS )

Eq. 1
Eq. 2

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Differently from the Skin Effect, the Damage Ratio is always a positive number that can be compared with Skin as
described below:
-

Positive Skin: DR > 1

Skin = 0: DR = 1

Negative Skin: DR<1

The results in terms of damage ratio and Produtivity Index (PI) from several operations on different wells in distinct fields
can be seen in the Fig. 4. The curves compare the results on vertical and deviated wells with different acidizing and perforation
techniques like those previously described.

Fig. 4 Damage ratio (DR) and Productivity Index (PI) of untreated and treated formations. DR = 1 corresponds to Skin = 0.
As expected, it can be seen that the acidizing treatment always remove the formation damage, delivering improved PI when
compared to untreated formations. However, in the same trend, it was expected a DR < 1 after acidizing, something not
regularly achieved as seen in Fig. 4. The DR removal results irregularity can be explained through the variation on the
acidizing design, once operational constraints to acid rate, placement or volume were observed. It is expected that those
limitations will not be present in the development phase of the correspondent oilfields, allowing the performance of bigger and
better designed operations.
One of the basic differences observed in the acidizing design is the acid volume, that can explain, in a certain degree, the
reasons for the DR removal variation. Normally, the acidizing volume varies accordingly to the following range:
-

From 20 to 50 gal/ft for coiled tubing operations.

From 75 to 300 gal/ft for bullheading operations.

This variation can have produced the observed irregularity in the damage removal efficiency, nevertheless, it can be seen
that the bullheading in association with the pilot zone or the diverting washpipes tends to present better results, as expected,
since larger volumes of acid and higher rates and pressures are normally used in this technique, helping the diverting agent
action and achieving better zonal coverage (Glasbergen et al., 2009). Fig. 5 presents only a slight trend that seems to favor the
bullheading in terms of damage removal when compared to coiled tubing, but production logs have shown an improvement in
the zonal coverage on bullheading operations. An example of the effect of this placement technique can be observed in Fig. 6
that shows the production profile change after performing a bullheading operation, in well previously treated with coiled
tubing. In general, this behavior has been seen in all wells treated by this technique.

SPE 151797

Fig. 5 Damage ratio and PI after treatment.

Fig. 6 Comparison of zonal coverage after coiled tubing (left) and bullheading (right) operations respectively. Operations
performed in the same well.
Also, it seems that the perforation method, TCP or wireline, dynamic or static underbalanced or even overbalanced
perforation, did not have special influence over the formation DR or PI when compared after the acidizing job once,
unexpectedly, overbalanced perforations achieved a small advantage, as seen in Fig. 7. Nevertheless, it have been observed an
advantage of the underbalanced techniques in test operations planned to avoid formation acidizing (Sun et al., 2011) due rig
time concerns, once it allows the well be tested just after performing the perforation without undergoing an acidizing treatment
(previous Fig. 4).

Fig. 7 Damage ratio and PI behavior, related to the perforation technique before and after the acidizing.

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In a similar way, the shot density analisys (Fig. 8) seems to show only a minor tendency favoring the 12 spf density,
suggesting the need for more data acquisition to investigate this behavior.

Fig. 8 Damage ratio and PI behavior after acidizing, related to the shot density.
Certainly, the PI results are directly related to the formation permeability and these two variables seem to be the only ones
that have a good correlation (Fig. 9), even without normalizing the formation thickness and the used acid volume, approach
regarded to future works.

Fig. 9 Correlation between PI and formation permeability.

As expected, after the acid job, the formations with good permeabilities delivered good productivities, once they provide
the appropriated environment for acidizing treatments.

Questions that remain to be solved

Unexpectedly, from the previous data above, it seems that the shot density and the perforations techniques have little
impact over the damage removal (Bartko et al., 2007) when compared to the acidizing placement process and techniques that
use larger acid volumes. Despite all the information available in technical literature, unless new information from future
operations can change the observed tendency, it seems that further improvements in shot density and perforation techniques
are fated to produce minor gains in terms of acidizing effectiveness (Grove et al., 2011), or, in Petrobras terms, damage
removal. Additionally, it can be emphasized that to effectively compare acidizing effects in different wells and fields, it is
important to access complete well test results, including, of course, after job production loggings. Comparisons merely based
on PI, damage removal or job pressure effects do not account for the acidizing effectiveness accurately, specially the zonal
coverage, and can lead to misinterpretation. Fig. 10 reinforces this statement, once both represented operations presented good
results, while just the crosslinkable diverting agent has presented pressure variations along the job.

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Fig. 10 Pressure variation along the acidizing job using different diverting agents.

Development field phase expectations and new acidizing trends

Despite the good results obtained from the acidizing jobs in highly permeable formations, the characteristics observed on
the offshore Brazilian carbonate environment demand operational improvements in order to fulfill all the expectations
presented for the development phase of the new carbonate fields:
-

Enhance the diverting agents effectiveness, making them capable of create higher differential pressures among
treatment stages and producing better zonal coverage and treatment distribution.

Increase the temperature range for using solid hydrolyzable diverting agents.

Solving the doubts regarding the diverting liner application for horizontal wells, reducing the treatment uncertainties in
such architectures and increasing the operational safety.

Eliminate the use of coiled tubing in the operations in order to reduce the rig time and enhance the operational safety.

Real time diverting monitoring to create the possibility of modulating the diverting agent actuation while pumping.

Establish a systematic to deal with low permeability carbonate formations in high water depth environment.

Viscosifying diverting agents have serious limitation when dealing with high permeability contrasts, something commonly
found in carbonates. Unfortunately, one way to minimize this problem, the association of solid and viscosifying diverting
agents, is limited by the relatively low formation temperature of a significant part of the new carbonate fields (below 90 C).
This temperature extends the hydrolysis time of those solids what makes its use potentially damaging for the formation and
can create equipment impairment by solids production. The development of new solid diverting agents is ongoing, but it is
expected to take some time yet. Until there, the treatments would be limited to the viscosifying agents.
It has been expected a great improvement in the acidizing efficiency by the use of diverting liners, specially in horizontal
wells, but the poor choice of candidates brought doubts over that technique effectiveness, despite its good results when
associated to sand control. It is expected that those doubts will be settled applying the diverting liner on good permeability
formations.
The use of coiled tubing to create the pilot zone is really time consuming, which is especially concerning with nowadays
rig costs and, additionally, a safety issue. Efforts have been made to substitute or eliminate the coiled tubing use for this
purpose.
One important question is the way the acidizing job have been monitored. Normally, the job is conducted relying just on
three variables: pressure, rate and volume. Those variables are insufficient to provide a good idea of the acid distribution
during the pumping process. The development of fluid flow monitoring during the job, such as temperature differential
scanning (DTS), would help to actively control the acid flow during the job, making it possible to modulate the treatment
while pumping.
Finally, it is still to define how lower permeability formations will be dealt with: using highly deviated and long wells,
fracturing jobs or a mixture of both. All those questions should be answered in a relatively short time, once the field
development process can not wait for long.

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Conclusion
The presented results shown that treating carbonate formations in Brazilian offshore environment can be relatively simple
for conventional architectures, even in the case of wells equipped with intelligent completion, once the bullheading techniques
have been able to produce the desirable stimulation effect. However, despite the good results observed for damage removal
and zonal coverage, there is still room for improving the placement and diverting techniques used on conventional wells, once,
for good permeability formations, even small PI increment can represent a significant increase in the production rate. On the
other rand, horizontal wells are still a stimulation challenge, as the applied techniques still have safety or efficiency issues to
be solved.
Acknowledgments
The authors wold like to thank Petrobras for permission to publish this article and also to colleagues who contributed to its
preparation.
Metric conversion factors and nomenclature
Meter (m) = 3.281 ft
m3/d/kgf/cm2 = 89.44 bbl/d/psi
DR = damage ratio
PE = Static pressure
Pwf = Flow pressure
PS = Skin pressure
k0t = Permeability
= Porosity
= Viscosity
ct = Total compressibility
rw = Well radius
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