Novel Scale Inhibitor Extends Treatment Lifetimes in Permian EOR
Authors: Guraieb Paula , Tomson Ross , Courville Anna , Nikam Vaibhav , Kennedy John , Nelson Robby , Sears Brad 
Published: September 2021

Background

A new extended-release (ER) scale-inhibitor technology showing significantly increased lifetimes has been applied in the Permian Basin. Tomson Technologies and Group 2 Technologies, in partnership with Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), implemented a scale-squeeze program for this carrier system. It allows for fewer squeeze treatments, which results in lower chemical usage, decreased plugging risk, and reduced environmental impact.

Squeeze programs are an effective field treatment strategy to prevent scale formation in wells for extended periods of time. However, in some cases, squeeze lifetimes can be short, leading to frequent re-squeezing and production decreases, lowering overall economic recoveries.

The ER phosphonate-based chemistry (SI1313) was used in selected wells where incumbent (previous chemical provider) treatment lifetimes were shorter than expected. The incumbent squeeze volumes and additives were used, and the scale-inhibitor (SI) chemistry was replaced with SI1313 to obtain directly comparable results.

The wells selected are vertical wells, with predominantly carbonate mineralogy and 14–18% porosity and 9–16 mD permeability. Bottomhole temperature is 105°F (40°C). These wells are under continuous CO2 flooding operations, and the scales of interest are calcium carbonate and calcium sulfate predominantly. The selected wells were targeted to have a good squeeze history for comparison and stable water production.

Pre-Job Validation Work

Coreflood laboratory experiments were performed to simulate the adsorption and desorption under these specific Oxy Permian conditions. The coreflood showed over 10,000 pore volume (PV) of flow with inhibitor concentration remaining above the minimum effective concentration (MEC) during the entire run. Once greater than two times incumbent performance was reached, the coreflood was stopped, although the return concentration was still above MEC. For reference, corefloods with incumbent phosphonate chemistry under the same conditions usually drop below MEC around approximately 3,000–5,000 PVs.

The adsorption of SI1313 to core material was measured during the coreflood experiment and the results show 12.5 mg of inhibitor adsorbed per gram of core material. As a comparison, a typical incumbent phosphonate scale inhibitor adsorbs 1–2 mg of inhibitor per gram of core material. This increase in adsorption is considered a large improvement over traditional chemistry. The carrier platform’s superior adsorption, when combined with controlled desorption, is the basis for extending the lifetimes of scale- inhibitor treatments.

The corefloods results validate the ER characteristics expected from SI1313 and allowed for field squeezes to be conducted.

Field Application

Group 2 Technologies provided SI1313 to be squeezed for Oxy in January 2020, into five vertical conventional wells. The selected wells are in one area where CO2 flooding is in place and there is risk of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and calcium sulfate (CaSO4) scaling. These wells have had many scale squeezes performed on them, yielding an excellent data set to compare against. The goal of this trial was to show significant lifetime extension compared to previous incumbent squeeze lifetimes.