Chemical Modification of Biopolymers to Design Cement Slurries with Temperature-Activated Viscosification

Abstract

Abstract Polymeric viscosifiers are added to cement slurries for a variety of reasons, including prevention of particle settling and control of fluid loss, gas migration, and free-water. Many of these functions are critically important after the cement slurry has been placed behind the casing but before the setting of the cement. Some functions, such as particle-settling prevention, are also important during the pumping phase. Unfortunately, most of the viscosifying polymers suffer from thermal thinning at bottomhole temperatures, especially under shear. The amount of polymer required to maintain the required level of viscosity at elevated bottomhole temperatures causes excessive surface-slurry viscosification at ambient temperature. Pumping such slurries can require higher pump pressures, or in cases where formation breakdown pressure might be exceeded. This becomes a serious challenge when the window between the fracture pressure and the pore pressure of the formation is narrow. It would be a significant improvement to oilfield cementing technology to develop polymers that do not cause excessive slurry viscosification on the surface but gradually increase the slurry viscosity as it reaches downhole temperatures, with the maximum viscosity reached at the time the slurry becomes static behind the casing. This paper describes an economical chemical method, not based on encapsulation, for modifying biopolymers and their derivatives—for example, hydroxyethylcellulose, xanthan, and guar—that renders them insoluble in cement slurries at room temperature (RT). When the cement slurries are heated, the slurries develop viscosity, as reflected by rheological measurements. The method also provides for increased viscosification efficiency of the modified polymers because of the increased molecular weights of the modified biopolymer products. Synthesis details, slurry rheologies at different temperatures, and job-placement simulation details are presented. A possible reaction mechanism that is operative in the chemical-modification step is also discussed.