A selective water control and gas augmentation method based on APR gel

Abstract

Water production will seriously affect the economics of gas well in the development of oil field. However, the conventional water shutoff agent is easy to block the gas flow channel at the same time of plugging the water. In this paper, a temperature and salt resistant polymer gel system composed of acrylamide/acryloyl morpholine/vinylpyrrolidone terpolymer (APR) and polyethyleneimine/modified alumina nanoparticle cross-linker was developed. At the same time, a selective water control and gas augmentation method based on APR gel was established. The effect of gel composition on its performance was mainly studied, and the water & gas shutoff performance in harsh environment was also researched by sandpack flow experiment. The gelation time could be controlled within 2–14 h by adjusting the concentration of the polymer, cross-linker, and deoxidant. In addition, the dehydration rate of the gel was only 2.6% after 180 days heat aging at 107 °C and 230,000 mg/L mineralization. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) showed that the uniform distribution of the network structure resulted in the gel with excellent stability in harsh environments. Sand filling experiments indicated that the plugging rate of gel for sand filling models with different permeability was all above 90% in harsh environment (107 ℃, 230000 mg/L salinity). Besides, laboratory experiments have illustrated that the injection pattern of the gel has a significant influence on its water & gas shutoff performance. Injecting 0.5PV gel solution first, then injecting 6PV N2, the shutoff performance of gel for water was nine times as good as that of gas. The research provides technical guidance for the water shutoff of high-temperature and high-salt gas reservoirs.