Study of Ultra-Dry CO2 Foam Fracturing Fluid Enhanced By Graphene Oxide

Abstract

Unconventional oil and gas resources such as shale gas, shale oil, CBM, tight gas and oil have attracted more and more attention worldwide in recent years. However, most of the formations of unconventional oil and gas are suffering from poor geological condition, thus the resources can not be developed without fracturing stimulation. Conventional hydraulic fracturing usually consumes a huge amount of water and also leads to the pollutions of surface water and even residential water. In addition, the formation damage caused by incomplete gel breaking, adsorption of polymers, clay expansion and water blocking are still not fully eliminated. Thus, in this work, ultra-dry CO2 foam stabilized by graphene oxide (GO) were explored to get a fracturing fluid characterized by low water consumption, environmental friendliness, high efficiency and low formation damage. The foam quality of fracturing fluid in the study was higher than 90%, thus the water consumption of fracturing fluid was lower than 10% of total volume. The foam stability, rheology and dynamic filtration were studied by using a large-scale fracturing fluid test device. The results showed that the stability and thermal adaptability of ultra-dry CO2 foam were enhanced by the addition of graphene oxide. The interfacial dilatational viscoelastic modulus of CO2/liquid was increased when the graphene oxide was used with saponin, implying that the bubble film interface became solid-like; The ultra-dry CO2 foam enhanced by the graphene oxide showed a shear thinning behavior. The effective viscosity of ultra-dry CO2 foam was increased by adding graphene oxide and its viscosity was higher than 50 mPa·s at a shear rate of 100s-1; Moreover, compared to pure surfactant foam, the filtration control performance of ultra-dry CO2 foam was also enhanced by graphene oxide. At a filtration pressure difference of 3.5MPa, the filtration coefficient of ultra-dry CO2 foam was decreased significantly by the addition of graphene oxide. Although the core damage caused by foam with graphene oxide was slightly higher than that of pure surfactant foam, the permeability damage was still below 10%, implying that the foam as a fracturing fluid is relatively clean to formation. Ultra-dry CO2 foam fracturing fluid stabilized by graphene oxide provides a new high-performance fracturing system for unconventional oil and gas at water-deficient area. This study will be beneficial to fracturing applications characterized by low water consumption, environmental friendliness, high efficiency and low formation damage.