Oil Rig Day

SafGuard

PIC's process for protecting valuable assets

Much of the formation damage that can occur during the drilling and completion cycle is preventable. However, there is a wide range of formation damage mechanisms that are not well understood, and as a result, left untreated.

PIC's SafGuard Process delivers new technology to predict and prevent these mechanisms. This results in an increase in capacity of recoverable reserves and extension of the well’s productive life. Left untreated, these complex damage factors would establish a foundation of accelerating the early onslaught of water production and fines plugging. PIC’s SafGuard Process deploys chemistries that either prevent and/or remove troublesome damage, maximizing the productive capacity of new wells.

The inherently damaging effects from the processes of drilling and completions often inhibit the performance of new drills and completions. These damaging mechanisms leave wells with initial drawdowns and high skins that are preventable with the proper application of PICs SafGuard chemical technologies. The SafGuard program protects those valuable assets and reserves by allowing operators to confidently and safely, drill and complete the most challenging reservoirs without the risk of damaging or restricting the wells performance.

Drilling Damage

Drilling fluids are the first foreign conditions that the reservoir rock is exposed to. This introduction is typically unavoidable but the systems that are typically used can severely alter the wettability properties of the reservoir rock. Reservoir rock is initially water wet allowing oil to flow easily through pores. Drilling fluids can change this and turn the rock towards an oil wet condition that allow the well to easily produce water while entraining oil. This increases the odds of fines migration and plugging. This increased water production also increases the odds of a water or emulsion block that may not be reparable.

Apart from the damage done by the drilling fluid filtrate, there is the damage done by the residual filter cake. An efficient filter cake is necessary to increase penetration rates, maintain wellbore stability, and minimize filtrate losses to the permeable zones that are being drilled through. High volumes of sized particulates in the drilling mud, makes a filter cake on the walls of the wellbore. After drilling is completed, cleanup fluids are circulated through the well to remove these barriers and restore the reservoir's true permeability. Often these cleanup fluids are under-designed or ineffective, leaving wells damaged at the time of their initial production.

Completions Damage

There are many points during the completions phase where damage can occur. The more common damage seen is caused by the use of incompatible completion fluids. Mineral rich fluids can react downhole with ion rich reservoir fluids and cause a rapid deposition of scale that may cause immediate and irreversible plugging. Seawater is a primary example, seawater is sulfate rich and when these sulfate ions reach barium rich reservoir fluids barite scale is formed. Barite is acid insoluble and the only chemical treatments available require highly alkaline conditions and high temperature. The temperatures required aren't commonly seen and the high pH will precipitate any acid soluble scale currently held in the fluid and cause an entire different issue.

Damage Removal

It is best to restore water wet conditions as soon as possible and treat any blocking that might have occurred. The formation of damage during the initial steps of well development are hard to determine because of the lack of comparative data. PIC uses predictive technology to determine the likelihood of damage formation and which mechanisms present the highest risk. From there we can design a base cleanup treatment to ensure that the well is producing to its maximum capacity from the very beginning. If you drill a well, drill a good one.

Remove and dissolve drilling fluid filter cakes from wellbores that are left with high skins. The use of PICs high strength solvent systems in combination with our enhanced acid systems, can remove more than 1 lb. / gal of sized carbonate solids that are used to build a fluid loss barrier during the drilling process. The enhanced acetic system delivers HCl dissolving power without the risk of forming acid insoluble, sludges and rigid film emulsions.

For the prevention of scale caused by incompatible fluids a veriety of treatement chemicals can be added to the fluid systems depending on the risk. There are systems that are calcium specific, sulfate specific, and some that deisgned more generally with a wider range of sequestering/chelating capabilities. 

PIC provides tailor designed solutions to treat each well based on the specific conditions. There are no cookie cutter wells so we don't provide cookie cutter solutions. We will custom design a job that best suits your specific needs to get the best return with least risk possible.

PIC Chemicals
1306 S. Cherry St.
Tomball, TX 77375 USA
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