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Polymer‐acid solutions: Their use for the enhancement of oil reservoir stimulation
Author(s) -
Amro Mohammed M.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/app.28681
Subject(s) - polymer , formic acid , acetic acid , chemical engineering , drilling fluid , chemistry , xanthan gum , polyacrylamide , enhanced oil recovery , carbonate , materials science , chromatography , rheology , composite material , organic chemistry , polymer chemistry , drilling , metallurgy , engineering
A reduction in permeability occurring around the wellbore resulting from drilling, completion and/or workover fluids increases the flow resistance to the petroleum reservoir fluids and is defined as formation damage. Acidizing process removes near‐wellbore damage and enhances hydrocarbon production from producing wells. This study investigates the effect of adding polymer as a retarding agent to acid solutions to slow and control the reaction in matrix acidizing treatment of carbonate rocks. Two different polymers, polyacrylamide (PAA) and polysaccharide (xanthan) and two different acids, acetic acid and formic acid, were used through this study. The results revealed that the presence of PAA did not change the viscosity of the acid solution significantly, while the viscosity of xanthan‐acid solutions was decreased with increasing the acid concentration. Additionally, the reaction of polymer‐acid solutions with the rock material was monitored under microscope. Original rock samples obtained from Saudi reservoirs containing mainly carbonate were used in the reaction. The PAA‐acid solution did not show any decrease in the reaction rate compared to that of acid solution. Thus, the PAA solution applied in this study is not recommended as a retarder. However, xanthan‐acid solutions showed a significant decrease in the reaction time. Therefore, xanthan was selected to perform further investigations in Rotating Disk Reactor at different pressures. Scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) was conducted on pretreated and posttreated rock samples. This provides the opportunity to perform a detailed description of the rock surface and facilitates the identification of the changes occurring due to polymer‐acid treatment. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008