Hydrophobically Associating Polymer Water-in-Oil Emulsions Used in Multi-pad Fracking for Tight Oil Reservoir: The First Example in China

Abstract

Abstract Multi-pad hydraulic fracturing is believed a cost-effective procedure to unlock the tight oil from low-porosity, low-permeability reservoirs. However, the inconvenience of difficult-dissolving process at surface and crosslinking of the conventional guar-based fracturing fluid systems cannot satisfy such fracking jobs because of the massive proppant loading, high flow rate and large volume of the fluids used. To address these issues, a crosslinking-free and rapid-dissolution fracturing fluid system based on synthetic hydrophobically associating polymer (HAP) "water-in-oil" emulsion was developed. The HAPs are derived from classical water-soluble polymers by incorporating small amount of long hydrophobic side chains onto the polymer backbone. When above a critical associating concentration, these polymers can automatically form a three-dimensional transient network by intermolecular association, reminiscent of cross-linked structures, offering the suspending capacity for proppants. With inverse emulsion polymerization, the obtained HAP emulsions can not only get high molecular weight, but also be rapidly dispersed and finally dissolved within 5 minutes. It was found concentrated HAP polymer emulsions can be dispersed online with surface water or even produced fluids to get final designed concentration. Laboratory rheological study shows that 1% of the as-prepared fracturing fluid can reach more than 50 mPa%s at 150 0C. Compared with guar-based fluid, the HAP fracturing fluid can be completely broken, and the viscosity, surface tension, skin damage of the residual fluid on the permeability are all smaller, while the fluid loss is comparable, proppant-carrying ability is even better. Most importantly, no further surfactant was needed to assist the flowback the fluid. Since September 2013, such associative polymer fracturing fluids were successively used in 29 wells of 3 well pads, Yan-227, Yan-22 and Bin-37 blocks in Shengli Oilfield, Sinopec, where the temperature ranges from 110 to 145 cC. Totally 60,000 m3 fluids were consumed in these fracking jobs, and 87, 9, and 45 stages were successively fractured in the horizontal sections, respectively.