SPE 143845

Engineering Drill-in Fluids to Improve Reservoir Producibility

Ryan van Zanten, David Horton and Per-Bjarte Tanche-Larsen, Halliburton, SPE

Copyright 2011, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE European Formation Damage Conference held in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 710 June 2011.

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 officers, or
members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is
restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

Abstract
Preventing formation damage is the primary objective of a drill-in fluid. Damage can occur through many different mechanisms
including emulsion blocks, water blocks, polymer/filtrate/particle invasion, precipitates, and improper wetting of the formation.
Damage can be remediated by stimulating the formation through fracturing, acidizing or improving flow-back with chemical
treatments; however, these post-drilling treatments can significantly increase well construction costs.
Ideally a reservoir drill-in fluid will be tailored to prevent formation damage and protect the producibility of the well. Current
methods such as viscosifying filtrate can be engineered to minimize filtrate invasion along with utilizing acid-degradable fluid loss
control polymers/bridging particles. Verifying compatibility between the drill-in fluid and formation fluids can help prevent
blockages from precipitates or scale. Although it can be minimized, filtrate invasion in water-based drill-in fluids is typically
higher than in oil-based drill-in fluids, and such invasion can adversely impact producibility.
This paper investigates the effect of chemical treatments added to the fluid that alter formation wettability and/or eliminate
emulsion blocks in oil wells or water blocks in gas wells whilst being penetrated during the drilling process. By applying these
treatments, water- and brine-based fluids can achieve return permeabilities similar to oil-based drill-in fluids. The invading
aqueous filtrate can be used as a production enhancement tool, allowing us to achieve improved formation producibility. This
paper describes the development of a unique technique to chemically alter the drill-in fluid such that the invading filtrate alters the
producing rock to optimize production. This can reduce or eliminate the need for remedial treatments and can decrease damage
from certain fluid additives such as lubricants and corrosion inhibitors.

Introduction
When drilling in the reservoir it is ideal to minimize the damage that can occur to the producing section. Formation damage can
occur through many different mechanisms: emulsion blocks, water blocks, polymer/filtrate/particle invasion, precipitates, improper
wetting of the formation, etc [1-3]. The damage can be remediated by stimulating the formation in the form of fracturing, acidizing
or improving flow-back with chemical treatments.
Ideally a drill-in fluid will be tailored to prevent formation damage mechanisms. Fluid properties such as viscosity can be
engineered to minimize filtrate invasion along with the addition of acid degradable fluid loss control polymers/bridging particles.
Compatibility between the drill-in fluid and formation fluids can reduce the creation of blockages from precipitates or scale.
Finally a surfactant can be added to the fluid to alter the formation wettability, eliminate water blocks in gas wells or emulsion
blocks in oil wells.
True Windsor IV microemulsion forming surfactant packages (thermodynamically stable swollen micelles) should be
especially effective at altering the wettability and eliminating emulsion and water blocks. Surfactants that form oil-in-water
Windsor IV microemulsions will aggressively water wet the formation which helps eliminate water blocks and improve oil/gas
transport through the formation. By being in the Windsor IV phase the continuous phase is aqueous, ensuring that the formation
will remain water wet. Oil blockages can be readily solubilized since microemulsification is a thermodynamically favored
equilibrium state. Also, by forming microemulsion droplets, the viscosity of any oil-in-water emulsion will be reduced to near the
continuous phase viscosity (water) possibly improving flow-back of formation fluids.
There are different damage mechanisms for gas and oil reservoirs so the regain permeability in both types of reservoirs was
tested. Oil based fluids are particularly damaging in gas wells due to wettability alteration and the low viscosity of the produced
2 SPE 143845

fluid (<1 cP) [4]. Gas wells are also more affected by water blocks, requiring a wettability alteration in order to get them to
produce optimally. Different lithologies can also be affected differently by certain surfactant packages, so both sandstone and
carbonate cores were tested.

Theory
Surfactants have long been used as possible stimulation or enhanced oil recovery additives. The amphiphilic nature of the
surfactant molecule allows it to position itself at the interface between different phases (liquid/liquid, gas/liquid, solid/liquid, etc.).
This can lead to a reduction of surface tension between liquid/liquid and gas/liquid interfaces or a change in wettability between
liquid/solid interfaces. The reduction in surface tension at the liquid/liquid interface allows flow with a lower pressure drop across
the length of the porous media, thus making the fluid move more easily. The alteration in wettability allows the wetting fluid to
spread along the solid interface leaving more open cross-section to flow of the non-wetting fluid. This has been seen in
experiments of two-phase flow in porous media, showing that the non-wetting fluid flows easier as it tends to aggregate in the
larger pore spaces. The smaller pore spaces are filled with the wetting fluid and capillary forces will cause a block to be formed,
but these pores contribute very little to the overall flow [5].
Emulsion blockages formed from oil-in-water or water-in-oil emulsions, can severely reduce the producibility of the reservoir.
This is because emulsions can create very high viscosity fluids due to droplet-droplet ineteractions [6]. The addition of certain
surfactants can also act to break up oil/water emulsions by micellizing or microemulsifying the oil, leading to a lower viscosity
solution, thus a higher production rate. Water blocks are more detrimental in gas wells, due to the much lower viscosity of the gas
than the liquid. This causes liquid to build up leading to lower production. Treatment with a water wetting surfactant will cause the
water to spread on the solid interface leading to higher production of gas.

Results and Discussion

Several different surfactant packages were examined, including Windsor IV microemulsion forming surfactants and
solvent/surfactant combinations. The materials tested were as follows:

MS1 microemulsion forming surfactant package

MS2 OSPAR compliant microemulsion surfactant package
S1 OSPAR compliant surfactant water wetting agent/demulsifier
SS1 organic solvent/surfactant permeability enhancer
SS2 organic solvent/surfactant permeability enhancer
SS3 mutual solvent/surfactant
FS1 flowback surfactant mixture
FS2 flowback surfactant mixture

Oil return permeability testing was performed to investigate the potential of these additives to improve the regain permeability
of the producing formation after drilling. The effect of the additives on both sandstone and carbonate cores in a range of
permeabilities was examined. Exposure to KCl/NaCl and CaCl2/CaBr2 drill-in fluids were also examined to test the suitability of
the surfactant packages to use in both mono- and di-valent brines. For the majority of the testing a general KCl/NaCl formulation
was selected (Table 1):

Table 1: Fluid formulation for a typical water based drill-in fluid.

9.5 ppg NaCl/KCl Drill-in fluid
Fluid formulations:
KCl/NaCl brine (bbl) 0.950
Defoamer (ppb) 0.175
Viscosifier (ppb) 1.25
Fluidlossstarch(ppb) 6
Alkalinity agent (ppb) 1
Calcium carbonate (ppb) 40
SPE 143845 3

The fluid loss agent (starch) and bridging agent (calcium carbonate) are acid degradeable, thus easily remediated by acidizing
the filter cake. Also, a software package was used to select the size distribution and optimal concentration of the calcium carbonate
particles to bridge the pore throats in the core, leading to a lower volume of filtrate. A base fluid was then built regarding this
specific formulation and 0.5-1.0 volume-% was replaced with the different stimulation surfactants that were investigated. All
fluids were hot rolled for 16 hours at 150F and allowed to cool to room temperature before being used to build filter cake at
200F. The addition of such low volume-% of surfactants to the overall fluid formulation caused little or no change to the fluid
properties (FANN 35A Rheometer) as evidenced in Table 2.

Table 2: Fluid properties of 9.5ppg KCl/NaCl drill-in fluid at 120F.

Properties Neat MS1 MS2
2
600rpm,lb/100ft 51 52 49
2
300rpm,lb/100ft 39 39 38
2
200rpm,lb/100ft 33 34 32
2
100rpm,lb/100ft 26 28 25
2
6rpm,lb/100ft 11 12 10
2
3rpm,lb/100ft 9 10 8
PV,cP 12 13 11
2
YP,lb/100ft 27 26 27
2
10sec,lb/100ft 10 10 9
2
10min,lb/100ft 11 12 11

The formation damage caused by the fluids was tested using the Automated Return Permeameter (ARP) using a variety of
different cores. The testing procedure was as follows:

Core
1. Drill 1 diameter, >2 length core from either sandstone or carbonate core sample
2. Dry for >16 hours in an over at 215F
3. Obtain weight, diameter and length for dry core
4. Saturate in 5 wt-% NaCl under vacuum for 2 hours
5. Soak for >16 hours in 5 wt-% NaCl
6. Obtain weight of saturated core
7. Calculate pore volume from dry/saturated weight

Oil premeability testing

1. Load the brine saturated core into Automated Return Permeameter
2. Raise confining pressure to 1000psi and temperature to 200F
3. Flow Soltrol at 4mL/min until permeability is stable
4. Record initial permeability
5. Displace the damaging fluid to the face of the core
6. Run damage with 500psi of differential pressure for 2 hours using dynamic filtration.
7. Flow Soltrol at 4mL/min until permeability is stable
8. Record the permeability difference as regain permeability
Acidizing
1. Retain damaged core in holder at temperature and pressure
2. Displace brine/acid generating fluid to the face of the core
3. Squeeze in ~1 pore volume at a differential pressure of 50psi using dynamic filtration.
4. Allow the brine/acid mixture to soak for 16 hours
5. Flow Soltrol at 4mL/min until permeability is stable
6. Record the permeability difference with initial permeability as regain permeability
4 SPE 143845

The general screening only involved recording the damage from the drill-in fluid. Promising candidates were then subjected to
the acidizing step when using sandstone cores. All tests were run in duplicate at a minimum and triplicate for the base fluid and the
three most promising candidates: MS1, MS2, and S1. The results for the initial screening are summarized in Table 3:

Table 3: Regain permeabilities of Berea sandstone cores after exposure to 9.5ppg KCl/NaCl drill-in fluid.
FluidAdditive Regainpermeability,%
KCl/NaClDrillinFluid 84
SS3 78
FS1 86
S1 96
FS2 89
SS1 87
MS1 103
MS2 97

The average regain permeability of three tests run using the 9.5ppg KCl/NaCl drill-in fluid outlined above was 84% and this
was the baseline used to compare the stimulative effect of the different fluid additives. Berea sandstone cores were drilled from
the same block and had an average oil permeability of ~70 mD. SS1, FS1 and FS2 are all common industry surfactant packages to
improve flow back of fracturing fluids, eliminate water blocks and water wet the formation. None of these products significantly
improved the regain permeability of the drill-in fluid so they were quickly eliminated as candidates.
SS3 was investigated since it showed earlier promise in remediating damage caused by lubricants in completion brines when
injected at low temperature. The earlier testing was performed at ~150F and SS3 showed stimulation of the formation. SS3 is a
combination of mutual solvent and non-ionic surfactant, a very succesful combination used for several decades for water wetting
surfaces in completion operations. However, ethoxylated non-ionic surfactants tend to lose effectiveness at elevated temperature
(175-225F) and become hydrophobic, causing formation damage similar to an emulsion blockage. Because of its promise SS3
was tested three times and was found to damage the formation in all tests performed at the 200F. Thus, SS3 remains an attractive
option for low temperature drill-in applications but should be thoroughly tested when looking at higher reservoir temperatures in
excess of 175F. The three most successful candidates were identified as S1, MS1 and MS2, showing regain permeabilities over
10% higher than the base KCl/NaCl drill-in fluid at 96, 97 and 103%, respectively.
These three fluids were further examined to confirm the results and to test along with the application of an organic acid
generating fluid to remediate the filter cake. All three fluids not only help the fluid produce better without remediation, they also
allow better acid contact leading to more efficient acidization. The treatment using MS1 was the most successful, showing an
average regain permeability of 102% without treatment and an average regain permeability of 120% after remediting the filter cake
via acidizing with formic acid (Fig. 1).

Figure 1: Regain permeability after treatment with MS-1 and acidizing in a KCl/NaCl drill-in fluid.
SPE 143845 5

The improved producibility occurs by removing any emulsion type blockages and by water-wetting the pores, which leads to
improved hydrocarbon production. A stimulative effect (>100% regain permeability) can occur by the surfactant package
remediating any naturally occuring blockages and water wetting more of the pores than were water wet in its native state. By
further opening up areas of the core and water wetting the surfaces the acid contact from the aqueous phase is greatly increased,
this can lead to a highly stimulating acid treatment with regain permeabilities far exceeding 100%. Thus, the surfactant not only
can improve the production of the wellbore after drilling the reservoir section, it can also improves later stimulation treatments
such as acidizing. Also, with improved water wetting and reduced blockages the flow path for an aqueous based fracturing fluid
should be enhanced leading to more productive wells after a fracturing treament. Similar results were seen for both MS2 and S1
with the results for MS2 displayed in Fig. 2.

Figure 2: Regain permeability after treatment with MS2 and acidizing in a KCl/NaCl drill-in fluid.

MS2 increased the regain permeability to ~97% and to ~115% after treatment with formic acid, with both microemulsion
forming surfactant fluids performing very similarly. For all three surfactants, improved regain permeability was achieved of 10-
20% than the fluid without surfactant additives. This is well outside the margin of error for return permeability testing using the
Automated Return Permeameter (+/- 5% intstrument error) and by doing the tests in triplicate, the error introduced by using cores
from natural materials was also minimized. To test the use of these surrfactants in general drill-in fluids their tolerance of and
effectiveness in di-valent brines needed to be examined.
Further testing was performed with MS1 and MS2 in a CaCl2/CaBr2 drill-in fluid. A common formulation for high density
drill-in fluid in di-valent brine is given in Table 4:

14.4 ppg CaBr2/CaCl2 Drill-in fluid

Fluid formulations:
CaCl/CaBr brine (bbl) 0.950
Viscosifier (ppb) 0.3
Fluid loss starch (ppb) 6
Alkalinity agent (ppb) 1
Calcium carbonate (ppb) 40
Oxygen scavenger (ppb) 1
Table 4: Fluid formulation for a typical divalent brine drill-in fluid.

The fluid loss agent (starch) and bridging agent (calcium carbonate) are acid degradable, thus easily remediated by acidizing
the filter cake. Again, a software package was used to select the size distribution of the calcium carbonate particles to bridge the
pore throats in the core, leading to a lower volume of filtrate. The results were very similar to those seen for the KCl/NaCl drill-in
fluid and are shown below in Fig. 3. Since the core was soaked in 5 wt-% NaCl the damage level for the di-valent brine base fluid
(-24%) was higher than that of the mono-valent brine drill-in fluid (-16%). This was most likely due to incompatibility between the
formation fluid and the base brine for the drill-in fluid. For consistencty of results the same 5 wt-% NaCl formation fluid was
used for all cores and the damage from precipitation of NaCl was to be expected when using such a high density divalent fluid.
6 SPE 143845

Similar results were seen for both the MS1 and MS2 fluids, showing the effectiveness of these surfactant packages as stimulation
treatments for drill-in fluids.

Figure 3: Regain permeability after treatment with MS2 and acidizing in a CaCl2/CaBr2 fluid.

The effect of lubricants on return permeability after damaging was also examined using the same ~70 mD Berea sandstone
cores. An OSPAR compliant lubricant was mixed into the standard 9.5ppg KCl/NaCl drill-in fluid. The lubricant was seen to do
very little damage when introduced to the drill-in fluid, showing a regain permeability of 79% at a 1vol-% addition and 78% at a 3
vol-% addition. With the addition of 0.5 vol-% MS2 the regain permeability was seen to be 91% at a 1vol-% addition of lubricant
and 94% at a 3vol-% addition of lubricant (Fig. 4).

Figure 4: Regain permeability after treatment with MS2 and acidizing in a KCl/NaCl drill-in fluid with added OSPAR compliant
lubricant.

Similar improvements were seen for MS1 making it apparent that lubricant in itself is not very damaging, but the surfactant
treatment is still very effective increasing the producibility of the reservoir section. The effect on the coefficient of friction was
also examined, and the addition of MS1 and MS2 actually showed a slight reduction in the coefficient of friction of approximately
~5%. This shows there are no adverse effects from the addition of these surfactant packages on the lubtricity of the fluid, yet they
still improve the producibility.
Additionally, the three candidate surfactants (MS1, MS2, S1) were tested on limestone (carbonate) cores from North America.
Due to the significantly different mineralogy, the wettability alteration of carbonates can be significantly different from that of
sandstone [7]. The carbonate cores available were very tight (~1mD) and would most likely require fracturing to produce
economically. However, testing was performed to show the non-damaging aspects of the surfactant additives on two very different
lithologies and show how it can even stimulate very tight oil bearing formations. The acidizing step had to be avoided due to
SPE 143845 7

instrument limitations since the Automated Return Permeameter cannot handle the large volumes of CO2 that would be generated
by acidzing carbonate cores. However, the improved water-wetting of the carbonate core should lead to a more effective acidizing
treatment leading to improved production over using a traditional drill-in fluid. The fluid formulations used were as shown in
Table 5:
9.5 ppg NaCl/KCl Drill-in fluid
Fluid formulations:
Water (bbl) 0.913
KCl (ppb) 20
NaCl (ppb) 59
Defoamer (ppb) 0.175
Viscosifier (ppb) 1.25
Fluidlossstarch(ppb) 6
Alkalinity agent (ppb) 1
5 micron calcium carbonate (ppb) 40
Table 5: Fluid formulation for a typical water based drill-in fluid.

Due to the tight nature of the core 40 ppb of 5 micron calcium carbonate weighting agent had to be used. This may not lead to
ideal bridging, but the pore spaces are small enough (<1 micron) that the fluid loss starch should effectively bridge/plug the pores.
The level of filtrate from damaging the carbonate core was less than that for the more open sandstone core, showing that the fluid
was effectively engineered to prevent too high of a filtration rate. The results of the tests on carbonate cores are shown in Fig. 5:

Figure 5: Regain permeability after treatment with MS1, MS2, and S1 in a KCl/NaCl drill-in fluid.

Again, the MS1 treatment showed the largest impact with a regain permeability of 103% versus a regain of 88% of the
KCl/NaCl drill-in fluid. The MS2 and S1 additive also performed well with 96% and 94% regain permeability respectively. These
results show how these particular surfactant packages are effective in different lithologies, with MS1 And MS2 being specifically
selected to be effective microemulsion forming packages and to interact favorably with both carbonate and sandstone surfaces.
Finally, the effect of the surfactant additives MS1 and MS2 on the producibility of gas wells was tested. The surfactant
formulations were believed to have similar effects as many common chemical additives for removing water blocks such as SS1.
SS1 is a pre-formed solvent in water microemulsion used to eliminate water blocks when fracturing gas wells. To compare the
formulations to SS1, regain gas permeability testing was performed using a 150D Crab Orchard Sandstone core to simulate a
tight gas formation. The testing was performed as follows:

1. An initial permeability was found by running N2 through a dry core.

2. The core was then saturated with 3 wt-% KCl brine neat or with 0.2 volume-% of the additive in brine.
3. N2 was then run through the core to determine the regain permeability.
8 SPE 143845

MS1, MS2, SS1, and SS2 were tested for comparison. MS1 and MS2 outperformed the SS products by over 40% leading to 100%
regain permeability (Fig. 6).

Figure 6: Regain gas permeability for the different stimulation additives.

The core saturated in the KCl brine alone suffered severe damage (- 70% permeability) due to water blocks. Gas permeability
is greatly affected by capillary pressure and water spanning across the throat of the pores, as is evidenced by the major loss in
permeability when soaking the core is just brine. By adding a surfactant or surfactant/solvent combination, gas/water interfacial
tension is reduced and the surfactant can help water wet the pore throat surface. This will lead to spreading, eliminating water
blocks, which helps lead to higher gas production. Due to the low viscosity of air, achieving high regain permeabilities for gas
flow in water saturated cores is extraordinarily difficult. This showed the great potential for MS1 and MS2 as a possible
stimulation additive.

Conclusions
A comprehensive study of the effect of various surfactant packages on the producibility of various lithologies was examined. Two
Windsor IV microemulsion forming surfactant packages were found to outperform many common flowback and surfactant/solvent
packages currently used in completion/stimulation operations.
The surfactant treatments were found to improve the producibility of both carbonate and sandstone core samples.
The two treatments were also seen to greatly improve the production of both oil and gas through sandstone.
The surfactant packages performed effectively in both mono- and di-valent brines and used the aqueous fluid filtrate to enhance
the producibility of the core samples.
Acidizing effectiveness also greatly improved due to the enhanced water wetting provided by the treatment.
The additives also reduced the damage that commonly occurs from the addition of lubricants and corrosion inhibitors.

References
1. Civan, F. 2007. Reservoir Formation Damage: Fundamentals, Modeling, Assessment and Mitigation. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
2. Civan, F. 2007. Formation Damage Mechanisms and Their Phenomenological Modeling An Overview. Paper SPE 107857 presented at the
European Formation Damage Conference, Scheveningen, The Netherlands, 30 May- 1 June.
3. Benninon, B. Formation Damage The Impairment of the Invisible by the Inevitable and Uncontollable, Resulting in an Indeterminate
Reduction of the Unquantifiable. 1999. Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology 38: 11-16.
4. Jin, L. 2009. Quantitative Formation Damage Evaluation Using Dynamic/Static Drill-in Fluid Filtration Tests Data. SPE/IADC 118659
presented at SPE/IADC Drilling Conference and Exhibition, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 17-19 March.
5. Ahmed, T. 2006. Reservoir Engineering Handbook. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
6. Schramm, L. 1992. Emulsions: Fundamentals and Applications in the Petroleum Industry. Washington D.C.: American Chemical Society.
7. RezaeiDoust, A., Puntervold, T., Strand, S., Austad, T. 2009. Smart Water as a Wettability Modifier in Carbonate and Sandstone: A
Discussion of Similarities and Differences in the Chemical Mechanisms. Energy Fuels 23: 4479-4485.