Formation damage induced by wax deposition: laboratory investigations and modeling
Authors: Sandyga M. S. , Struchkov I. A. , Rogachev M. K. 
Published: June 2020

There are oil fields, wherein favorable conditions for the formation damage induced by wax deposition are created during production. The damage can be expressed by a decrease in porosity and permeability and a reduction in the drainage area. There are only a few unconventional fields, and this makes them unique. To prevent this complication, it is necessary to control the field production. Assuming the presence of such problem, the conventional reserves may turn into difficult oil reserves whose production is problematic, which will compromise the project profitability. The key to the problem is associated with the experimental procedure and research conditions for investigation wax crystallization in oil, being the subject of this paper. The authors showed that the use of WAT measurement technique in an open measuring system is not enough to control wax deposition in the reservoir pore volume. Based on the results of the flooding technique and micro-computed tomography, a digital core, that allows to simulate fluid flow in the porous medium of the core before and after formation damage, has been created. The calculation of the change in the thermal field around the injection well over time, according to the extended Lauwerier’s concept, has been carried out. WAT of a wax-bearing solution was measured by the rheology method using an open measuring system (plate-to-plate measuring system under atmospheric pressure), and the dependence of viscosity versus temperature was obtained during experimental studies. The temperature was decreased from 60 to 10 °C at a cooling rate of 1 °C/min. The experiment was carried out at atmospheric pressure and a shear rate of 5 s−1. Also, filtration technique and micro-computed tomography were used. The dependence of the pressure gradient versus temperature and the pore throat diameter distribution functions for the initial core and core with organic scales were obtained. The flooding experiment was carried out at a constant flow rate of 0.5 cm3/min and confining pressure of 4.1 MPa. The temperature was decreased from 40 to 33 °C at a cooling rate of 1 °C/h. The inflection points on the curves viscosity versus temperature and pressure gradient versus temperature confirm the WAT. The results of the laboratory experiments showed that WAT, measured by the rheology method is 3–4 °C lower than WAT, measured by the flooding technique. The results of the micro-computed tomography showed that initial porosity decreased from 9.0 to 2.1% as a result of wax deposition. The pore throats with diameters from 20 to 70 μm are involved in the clogging with wax. The calculation results confirmed the possibility of cooling the near-wellbore area of injector to a temperature equal to WAT and the cold front movement to the producing wells. The production profiles calculated based on the models of porosity and permeability reduction, showed that wax deposition in the near-wellbore area can cause a significant decrease in the productivity index. An effective remediation technology for injection wells was proposed.