SPE 99641
Application and Development of Chemical-Based Conformance Control Treatments in
China Oil Fields
Y. Liu, SPE, PetroChina, and B. Bai, SPE, and P.J. Shuler, SPE, California Inst. of Technology
Copyright 2006, Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2006 SPE/DOE Symposium on Improved Oil
Recovery held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.A., 22–26 April 2006.
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Abstract
China represents the largest user of chemical-based
conformance control treatments and a series of technologies
have been successfully developed and deployed in recent
years. This paper will provide a review of current status of the
application and development of chemical-based conformance
control treatments in China.
This paper first summarizes types and development history
of conformance control treatments. Then a series of
technology information for conformance control is introduced,
including reservoir evaluation and testing, conformance
control agents, decision-making technology of well selection,
operation design and evaluation methods of application
results. This paper also addresses the theories and applications
of some promising combination technologies of chemical
based conformance treatment and another EOR/IOR process,
including the combination technology of surfactant and water
shutoff, profile control and mini-type surfactant flooding, acid
treatment and profile control treatment.
Finally, this paper summarizes the problems and
challenges that mature Chinese water flooded oilfields are
facing. Based on recent well tests, tracer testing and
interpretation, and previous water control treatment experience
it appears that channels or high permeability streaks have been
widely common in mature water flooded oilfields. Some
research directions and promising technologies are suggested.
Introduction
With the growing need of producing oil and gas resources, the
life extension of mature hydrocarbon reservoirs has become a
real challenge for the coming decades. Water production is a
well-recognized problem in depleting reservoirs and water
control has become one of the most important targets for
oilfield operators.[1-3] Many methods can be used to control
water, such as polymer flooding, ASP, gel treatments, and so
on.[4-6] Sometimes hydraulic fracturing and acid stimulation
also have the role to control water cut. Broadly speaking, all
these methods can be used to control conformance. However,
conformance control generally refers to those technologies in
which chemical or mechanical methods are used to reduce or
block water/gas production resulting from wellbores or high
permeability zones/channels/fractures of reservoirs.
Most oilfields in China, which were discovered in
continental sedimentary basins, are characterized by complex
geologic conditions and high permeability contrasts inside
reservoirs.[7] In the absence of active aquifer, these oilfields
were developed by water flooding from the early stage of their
development. Many problems, such as sand production, fines
migration, mineral dissolution, and so on, resulting from water
flood, have made the heterogeneity more serious. Serious
vertical and lateral heterogeneity in formations has resulted in
low sweep efficiency of injected water.
Chemical-based conformance control has been applied
since 1950’s in China. Currently, most treatments have
focused on injection wells rather than producers in China. Due
to multiple times of conformance control treatments in one
injector and extremely high water cut in offset producers,
remaining oil near wellbore is becoming less and less, and
more and more challenges have been arisen for conventional
conformance control technologies. This has promoted greatly
development and applications of new conformance control
technologies.
Table 1 shows the number and results of conformance
control treatments in China since 1979. It covers the results of
both mechanical and chemical methods but only presents the
PetroChina results from years of 2000 to 2004. About 14024
conformance control treatments have been applied in
PetroChina from 2000 to 2004. In total, there was an
incremental oil production of 2.73 million tons and a decrease
of 11.39 million m3 of water.
This paper first summarizes the development and
application history of conformance control technologies in
China, and then introduces the advances and discusses the
progress made in recent years. Finally, suggested research and
application directions of conformance control are provided
towards improving the economics and expanding the reservoir
conditions where these conformance technologies are
technically feasible.
1. Types of Conformance Control Treatments
According to chemical placement, conformance control
treatments can be divided into six categories:
2 SPE 99641
Water shutoff. Inject a plugging agent into a production
well to seal or selectively plug water production from high-
water production zones, as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig.1 Water shutoff in a producer
Profile Control. Injection a plugging agent into an
injection well to seal or partially block water absorbing ability
of high permeability zones or streaks, as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Conformance Control in an injector.
Combination of Profile Control and Water plugging.
Inject a plugging agent to adjust fluid profile of an offset
producer while inject a plugging agent to adjust injection
profile of an injection well, as shown in Fig.3.
Fig.3. Simultaneous treatments both in an injector and its offset
producer.
In-depth fluid diversion treatment: Place a plugging agent
into in-depth between an injector and its offset producer to
divert water into unswept low permeability zone to sweep
remaining oil by injecting a movable slug or a large volume of
plugging agent, as shown in Fig. 4.
Fig.4. In-depth fluid diversion
Simultaneous multiple well treatments in one
block/reservoir. To improve waterflooding efficiency of a
whole block/reservoir, conformance control treatments have
been operated in multiple wells. In addition, other
complimentary measures, such as reperforation, acid
stimulation, hydraulic fracturing and so on, are used to
enhance results further.
SPE 99641
Fig.5. Conformance control treatments in an integrated block.
2. History of Chemical-based Conformance Control
in China
The study and applications of conformance control
technologies, starting from Liaojunmiao oilfield in 1957, have
had more than 50 years of experience in China. Every two
years, a conformance control conference has been held to
communicate the advances and application of the technologies
since 1980. According to the topic of each conference and
recorded documents, the development of conformance control
technologies can be divided into four stages based on the
placement of plugging agents in China.
Water shutoff of single producer-from 1950’s to 1970’s.
Most oilfields were at the early stage of water flood and
average water cut is very low. Conformance control focused
on near wellbore treatment of a production well
independently, as shown in Fig.2. One entire isolated zone
incurring high water production is plugged or abandoned in
order to allow oil production from other zones. Treatment was
targeted on the well which has obvious water zone or high
watercut zone separated from other oil production zone(s).
The plugging agent mainly was injected by zone isolation
method in which packer or other alternative method was used
to separate the target layer during plugging agent injection.
Strong plugging agents were usually used during the period.
Representative plugging agents included oil-based cement,
resin, activated crude oil and silica-CaCl2.
Profile control of single injector: from 1980’s to the
middle of 1990’s. Most oilfields were at the middle stage of
water flood and average water cut is around 50%.
Conformance control treatments mainly targets on improving
injection profiles of injection wells and improving vertical
sweep efficiency. Small amount of strong plugging agents
were injected to plug high permeability zones. Bullhead
methods were often used to control injection profiles.
Representative agents are high molecular weight of polymer
and their crosslinking systems, like hydroacrylimide (HAPM).
HPAM concentration was usually above 5000 mg/L, and the
volume of a plugging agent was usually below 150 m3.
Multiple well of treatments in one Block at one time:from
1990’s to the early of 2000’s.. More and more oilfields
entered middle to high water cut stage. Improving sweep
3
efficiency of a whole reservoir is a pivotal task. Multiple well
of treatments not only can improve vertical sweep efficiency
but they also can increase areal sweep efficiency of injected
water and improve fluid flow in whole block. Conformance
control treatments were used both injectors and producers.
Typical technology is the development and application of
three decision-making methods. The three decision-making
technologies can be used to select well candidate, chemical
agent, plugging agent volume optimization and economic
forecast.
In-depth fluid diversion and combination
technologies:from the late 1990’s to now.. More and more
oilfields have become mature. Remaining oil is becoming less
and less due to a long time of water flooding and multiple
times of near wellbore conformance control treatments. The
unswept low permeability part of a thick layer has become the
main objective to improve oil recovery, so in-depth fluid
diversion has become an important area of research and
application. Typical chemicals are weak gel, preformed
particle gel (PPG), and colloid dispersion gel (CDG). Polymer
concentrations (excluding crossliner and other additives)
usually range from 1,000 to 3,000 mg/l for weak gel and from
400 to 1000 mg/l for CDG. The concentration of PPG usually
ranges from 1000 to 5000 mg/l. Bentonite and industry wastes,
such as paper waste, slurry from produced water treatments,
and so on, have also been used due to their extremely low
expense. In addition, combination technologies of
conformance control and other operations, like acid
stimulation and mini-scale surfactant flooding, has been
applied to improve the total results.
In summary, it is the oilfields becoming more mature that
is promoting the development of conformance control
technology.
3. Conformance Control technologies
Conformance control is a systematic integration of geology,
formation evaluation, petrophysics, reservoir engineering,
chemistry, facilities and economics. This involves reservoir
and wellbore evaluation and diagnosis, well candidate
selection, chemical evaluation and screening, optimization and
economic forecasts, field operation and results evaluation.
3.1 Reservoir Evaluation and Testing
Reservoir evaluation includes reservoir characterization
and reservoir simulation, aiming at knowing reservoir and
formation structure, pay zones, petrophysics, production
history and remaining oil distribution. Reservoir
characterization requires a multidisciplinary team effort. It
involves a systematic integration of geological, geophysical
and engineering data and improves description of reservoir
properties in and between wells.
A comprehensive reservoir engineering method has been
developed to recognize reservoir characterization and
remaining oil distribution for mature oilfields in China. This
method integrates 3D reservoir geological modeling and
reservoir simulation to characterize reservoir and to analyze
remaining oil and formation pressure distribution.[8]
A comprehensive understanding of fracture or high
permeability channels/streaks distribution, fault direction and
sealing provides valuable information for the selection of the
4 SPE 99641
area and scale for conformance control. The information from
petrophysics, including pore structure and distribution, rock
composition and surface properties, oil properties, formation
water concentration and compositions, is used to help select
chemicals. Remaining oil distribution is used to design the
placement of chemicals.
Many test technologies have been applied to enhance the
understanding on wellbore, near wellbore and reservoir
heterogeneity before conformance treatments, such as
injection profile log, production log, radioactive tracer,
temperature survey, well test in single well, inter-well tracer
monitoring technology, multiple-well testing, potential
difference and crosswell seismic topographic imaging, and so
on. Inter-well tracer monitoring, multiple-well testing and
potential difference are three common methods that have been
used to detect areal heterogeneity in China and are introduced
in follows.
Interwell tracer monitoring technology
A tracer is an identifiable substance that can be followed
through the course of a process providing information on the
pattern of events in the process or on the redistribution of the
parts or elements involved. Inter-well tracer monitoring
technique has been widely used to evaluate the areal
heterogeneity of a reservoir and to determine flow direction of
injected fluid by monitoring tracer concentration change with
time. Tracers used in China include radioactive isotopes,
fluorite dye, low molecular alcohol and some salt with a
distinctive anionic group, such as CNS-, NO3-, Br-, I-. Ideally,
selected tracers should have no reaction with fluids and rocks
in a reservoir and its concentration is easy to detect. Injection
water movement is monitored by analyzing tracer
concentration of produced water from around producers.
Tracers can be injected as a high concentration slug or
continuously over a long period. When the slug method is
used, a sample should be taken every few hours otherwise
some useful information may be lost. However, one issue
concerning current tracer technology is that sometimes the
sample collection is less frequent, such as every one week or a
few days. This kind of sampling may cause loss of some
useful data if tracer comes out during the period of no sample
collection. A new proprietary monitoring instrument is being
developed to monitor real-time data which allows more
frequent data collection, avoiding conventional restrictions of
less frequent data. Interwell tracer testing has been used to
solve the following problem: (a) Determine the connection
between producer and injector; (2) Determine if there exists
super-permeability zone and fracture; (3) Explain thief zone
thickness, permeability and its pore size due to recent
development of mathematical model and software
engineering; this has been a valuable tool to design and select
chemicals; and (4) Determine channel and waterflooded area
and thickness, which can be used to design the volume of
conformance control agent. For example, tracer monitoring
tests were used in twelve blocks in Puchueng oilfield,
Zhongyuan, Sinopec, from 1986 to 2005. Results showed that
the thickness of the waterflooded zone is only 18.3% of that of
total perforated zones. Currently the permeability of
waterflooded zone is 20 to 421.8 times of its original one, and
the radius of its pore throat is 2.6 to 12.4 times of its origin,
and water movement rate is 8.4 to 74 times that of early stage
of oilfield development.[9]
Multiple well testing
For multiple-well testing, the flow rate in one well is changed
and the pressure response is monitored in another. The two
main types of multiple well testing are interference tests and
pulse tests. Multiple well tests are very sensitive to reservoir
horizontal anisotropy, so they mainly have been used to
investigate the hydraulic communication between wells, to
describe reservoir anisotropy based on directional
permeability and to estimate inter-well transmissivity and
storativity. Pulse testing is more frequently used than
interference testing because it only requires a few hours to a
few days if there are super high permeability channels/streaks
between wells.
Potential testing
Potential testing is another common technology to detect areal
heterogeneity in China. High concentration salt is injected
into an injector. Currents have been measured in the ground
in several places. The mechanism for the local generation of
these currents lies in the difference of potential between
concentrated salt water and formation water. A streaming
potential is the result of the movement of fluids containing
ions. The mapping of potential difference, or gradient, can
delimit injection water movement.
3.2 Well Candidate Selection
Well selection generally requires three steps: initial well
candidate screening in a reservoir scale, detailed selection on
an individual well scale and final selection decision based on
economics. It requires teamwork and involves a reservoir
engineer, production engineer and field engineer. Initial
screening is based on reservoir description, remaining oil
distribution and formation pressure distribution, and well
production performance, interwell communication of reservoir
fluids. Detailed selection is based on individual information
of a selected candidate, including existing surface conditions
like pressure limit of injection pump, wellbore conditions,
near wellbore conditions and individual testing and monitoring
data, such as injection profiles, production profiles, and tracer
transport in different direction. The final decision depends on
an economic evaluation, considering available chemical cost,
operation costs, and the potential of oil increase and water
reduction. In addition, the application of inter-well tracer
tests, microseismic monitoring and interwell potential
measurement technologies has provided important information
for well selection.
Two methodologies for well selection have been
developed and have been widely applied in China oilfields to
direct well candidate selection: Pressure Index (PI) decision-
making technology (PI) and comprehensive decision-making
technology based on fuzzy logic.
PI Decision-making Technology
PI decision-making technique is based on the theory of
transient well test.[10] PI can be calculated from wellhead
pressure decline curve which is obtained from recorded real-
time pressure with time by shutting in the well, shown in Fig.
6.
SPE 99641
Fig.6. Pressure draw-down curve for PI decision-making.
PI is defined as:
T especially for in-depth fluid diversion. It can be broadly
PI =
∫ P(t ) ⋅ dt
o
T of polymer (or monomer), crosslinker and some other
Where,
PI= pressure index, MPa;
P(t)- real time pressure as a function of time during shut-in
of injection well;
T= Shut-in Time. Ninety minutes is usually designated to
have the same standard to compare PI of each well.
PI decision-making technology has been used to solve the
following six problems:
• Determine the necessity of conformance control
treatments in a whole block or reservoir;
• Screen candidates of injection wells for conformance
control;
• Select chemicals;
• Determine chemical volume;
• Predict application result of conformance control
treatment; and
• Determine the frequency of conformance control
treatment
Comprehensive Decision-making Technology
The selection of candidate wells is based on fuzzy
mathematics methods, considering well injectivity, reservoir
heterogeneity and offset production well performance.[11] The
decision process is shown in Fig. 7.
3.3 Chemicals and Evaluation
3.3.1 Chemical Types and New Development
Chemicals are most active part in the research area of
conformance control. More than 100 types of conformance
control agents have been developed and applied in oil fiel ds.
Common chemicals can be classified into: precipitate,
crosslinked polymer gel, particle/particulate, foam, microbial
and others. Recently, progress for conformance control has
been made in following areas.
5
Fig.7. Comprehensive decision-making technology for well
selection
Crosslinked polymer gel. Crosslinked polymer gel is the
most widely used chemicals for conformance control,
divided into two categories: in-situ gelling system and
preformed gel system. A in-situ gelling system is composed
additives. These compositions react at reservoir condition
(mainly temperature effect) to form gel to increase flow
resistance of following fluids. Typical in-situ gels include
weak bulk gel (BG) and colloid dispersion gel (CDG). Recent
widely used in-situ gels is weak bulk gel (BG) in which
polymer concentration is around from 1000 to 3000 mg/l.
Preformed gel only have one composition before injecting into
wells and its chemical reaction is completed on the surface.
Popular commonly used preformed gel is dispersed preformed
particle gel.[12,13] Table 2 compares the difference of PPG,
CDG and weak gel.
Using large volume of PPG to control conformance was
initiated in 1996 by RIPED, PetroChina. The first successful
large volume of PPG treatment was in Zhongyuan oilfield,
SINOPEC in 1999. Selected reservoir has serious conditions:
high temperature (107 ºC) and high salinity (150,000 mg/l).
So far, About 2,000 wells have been treated using PPG or PPG
combined with other gel in most oilfields in China, covering
both sandstone reservoirs and naturally fractured carbonate
reservoirs with temperature from 20 to 110 °C and formation
water salinity from 2000 to 280,000 mg/l. The common
weight of PPG is from 8 to 15 tons and concentrations range
from 1000 to 5000 mg/l. For example, PPG has been applied
in Daqing oilfield since 2001. Ninety-one wells were treated
from 2001 to 2004, 44 wells from water flooding area and 47
wells from polymer flooding area. Injected PPG
concentrations are from 3500 to 4500 mg/l, and injection
volume of PPG suspension is from 5000 to 8000 m3.
Alternating or continuous injection method is used depending
on pressure response during PPG injection. After treatments,
average water injection pressure increased about 0.6 MPa.
There are 366 producers connecting with these treatment
wells. Average incremental oil of these producers is about 2.6
t /d/well and water cut decreased about 2.6%. More than two
hundred thousand tons of oil was increased from these
6 SPE 99641
treatments. For the application in the polymer flood area, the
produced polymer concentration also decreased. PPG has
been widely accepted and is seeing more use by operators of
Chinese oilfields because it has some advantages over
traditional in-situ gel for some applications listed in Table 3.
inorganic particle/particulate. This type of chemical
includes montmorillonite (bentonite) clay, fruit shell, and lime
slurry from waste water. A typical example is bentonite clay
gel, which is environmentally friendly and cheaper than
commercial chemical gels. The clay gel system has been
widely applied in many oilfields of China. The alternating
slugs of polymer and clay have often been injected as a means
to enhance plugging efficiency.
Precipitate.Two chemical solutions separated by a spacer
are sequentially injected into a formation. The two chemical
solutions usually have low viscosity and preferentially enter
high permeability zones/streaks, and react to form plugging
agents in the formation when contacting. A typical example is
sodium silicate with hydrochloric acid. Forty-two
conformance treatments using this system have been
implemented in Zhongyuan oilfields from 1997 to 2000. Over
displacement (flush) using HCl was applied to meet the
purposes of stimulating near wellbore and plugging in-depth.
The reaction mechanism is as follow:
Na2SiO3+2HCl=H2SiO3↓+2NaCl
Spacer and over-displacement of HCl have made
silicate gel form beyond wellbore and HCl can also react some
carbonate and increase permeability near wellbore. Figure 8
compares the average result of pressure index (PI), injectivity
(water injection rate per wellhead pressure), and starting
pressure (the minimal wellhead pressure that water can be
injected) before and after conformance control treatments. The
slight decrease of injection pressure and starting injection
pressure indicates that the area near wellbore was stimulated.
The increase of pressure index (PI) indicates the plugging
effect of participate because pressure diffusion velocity is
delayed.
14.0
Before Treatment
12.0
Ater Treatment
10.0
8.0
6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
PI (MPa) Starting P (MPa) Injectivity (m3/(D·MPa)
Fig.8. Average result comparision of different parameters from 42
treatments.
3.3.2 Evaluation of Chemicals
In general, the following evaluations of chemicals are
required before field test application, including: (1) Effect of
compositions on gelation time, gel strength and thermal
stability. (2) Effect of pH, salt types and concentration on gel
properties; (3) Effect of oxygen and biotech on gel properties;
(4) produced water effect on gel thermo-stability. (5) Effect of
shear caused by porous media and pumping on the gel
strength; (6) core flooding experiments for resistance factor
and residual resistance factor of oil/water.
It should be mentioned that it is necessary to know the
effect of fresh produced water on gel properties if gelant is
prepared by produced water because our experimental results
have shown that fresh produced water usually reduces gel
strength and thermal stability much more than aged produced
water.
Developed models for core flooding experiments include:
sand pack or core with a few pressure taps, parallel core
with/without crossflow, micromodels, large scale 3D physical
model, and fracture models. General evaluation parameters
include placement of chemicals, water plugging efficiency, oil
production efficiency, resistance factor, residual resistance
factor, breakthrough pressure gradient (minimal injection
pressure that water can be injected after gel treatment), and
relationship of residual resistance factor with injection rate.
3.4 Operation design
Operation design includes surface facilities, injection string
and chemical agent placement in formation.
Surface facilities: Specialized equipment was designed for
the preparation and injection of chemical agents. It is mainly
composed of mixing tank with mixer, injection pump, and
real-time monitoring system of pressure and injection rate.
There are two kinds of equipment: truck-mounted and skid
mounted type. In addition, there are fixed equipment station
and injection networks, which can perform consecutive
injection for large volumes of conformance control treatment.
Injection string: bullhead injection is usually used to inject
chemicals because zone isolation is expensive or
wellbore/reservoir conditions are not permitted to place a
packer.
Placement design: Placement is usually designed
according to the test result of injection profile and interwell
tracer testing. Reservoir simulator is often run to optimize gel
placemen. A three phase, nine components, three dimension
software has been successful developed in RIPED to optimize
in-situ gel treatments.
3.5 Evaluation of conformance control
Reduce water production and increase oil rate is the main
purpose of conformance control treatment. For water shutoff
in production wells, oil production rate, water cut, production
profiles and adjusted recoverable reserves are the main
indicators. For profile control, evaluation usually includes:
injection profile, injection pressure at previous injection rate,
pressure index from stable well test. Pressure index from draw
down well test, water cut and water/gas production of
connected producers. For multiple well treatments in an
integrated block, production decline curve analysis is of major
importance for the evaluation of comprehensive results.
4. Combination technologies of conformance control
and other EOR methodologies
Three combination technologies have been recognized and
applied in mature oilfield in China, including:
SPE 99641
4.1. Water plugging and mini-scale surfactant treatment in
a production well
Huff and puff surfactant from a production well is a
method to improve oil recovery. However, surfactant is
usually injected into a high permeability zone, so it often takes
a long time to shut in wells for surfactant imbibition effect. A
combination method was proposed and applied in China,
shown in Fig. 9. For this method, surfactant is first injected at
a producer and most surfactant will enter high permeability
parts of zone(s). Next, a water plugging agent is injected and
also enters high permeability parts of formation. After shutting
in to cure the plugging agent, incoming displacement water
will divert surfactant solution from the high permeability part
to low permeability part due to crossflow inside zones. The
treatment not only can reduce interfacial tension in low
permeability parts but it also can increase surfactant contact
with oil and the reservoir in low permeability areas.
Fig.9. Combination of water shutoff and surfactant soaking in a
producer.
4.2. “2”+ “3” technology
Profile control is an advanced secondary oil recovery
technology and its key role is to improve sweep efficiency,
and so profile control has its economic limitation. Surfactant
flooding is a tertiary oil recovery technology and its key role is
to improve displacement efficiency. A new technology, called
“2”+ “3”, has been successfully applied in oil fields. “2”
refers to profile control and “3” refers to tertiary oil recovery
technology, mainly surfactant flood.
The method is composed of two parts:
First step is profile control treatment, requiring profile
control results that must meet a two criteria.
Injection pressure must improve greatly after conformance
control treatment
FD, which is defined in the formula below, must be
between 0.70 and 0.95.
∫ t0 p (t )dt 1 ∫ t0 p(t )dt PI
FD = = ⋅ =
p0 t p0 t p0
Where, P0=wellhead water injection pressure before
shutting in, MPa
If FD=1, the formation has super high permeability
zone/streaks. If FD=0, the formation is fully plugged.
7
The second step is to screen surfactants and optimize
surfactant solution concentration and volume according to
core flooding experiments or reservoir simulation In general,
the ratio of benefit and investment is a standard to design.
“2”+”3” technology has been widely applied in those
reservoirs with fractures and super high permeability streaks.
4.3. Acid treatment and profile control treatment
Profile control and acid treatment have completely different
roles to enhance oil recovery. Profile control is to plug high
flow paths while acid treatment is to increase permeability.
However, one problem for acid treatment for mature oilfields
is that most acid enters high permeability zones/streaks, which
not only reduce acid penetration on targeted low permeability
zones but it may cause the permeability of the high
permeability zone to become much higher. To improve acid
treatment results, a combination technology of acid
stimulation and profile control was proposed and has been
successfully applied in mature oilfields in China. In general, a
profile control agent was first injected into well to block high
permeability zone/streak or average the water conformance,
and then acid is injected. So acid will be diverted and
penetrate into the low permeability zone after profile control
much more than that without profile control treatment.
5. Research and Application Direction
5.1 Reorganizing for channels or streaks in a mature
reservoir
High water cut is a general problem for most oilfields in
China. About 85% of oil production in PetroChina is from
those reservoirs in which water cut is more than 80%. Water
flood operations have made the remaining oil in these
reservoirs more and more disperse. Heterogeneity inside a
think layer and in an areal sense have become more and more
obvious. It is estimated that about 65-77 % of remaining oil is
left in unswept areas and only 23-35% of remaining oil is
confined to the waterflooded area. So improving sweep
efficiency of injected fluids into low permeability zones and
low permeability segments of thick layers are a crucial
objective to recover remaining oil.
Waterflooding has also caused pore structures and physical
parameters of reservoirs to change significantly. Channels,
high permeability streaks and fractures have become more
common in mature oilfields, as evidenced by the following
field experiences:
Evaluation Results from Interwell Tracer test: Many
reservoirs have no initial fracture, but many tracer tests show
rapid communication between injectors and producers later in
many cases. Many oilfields inject tracers to analyze areal
heterogeneity and explain channel thickness and permeability.
Results show that a channel or streak is only a few centimeter
in each breakthrough layer, the permeability is around a few
hundred Darcy to tens a few thousands of Darcy, the thickness
of water flooded zone is only 1% to 10% of injection
thickness, while 80-90% water was taken by these channels.
Gel treatment: A lot of treatments using a large volume of
in-situ gelling systems (usually above 5000 m3) have been
operated in oilfields. The designed gelling time is usually a
few hours to less than one day but all gelants have been
successfully injected into wells which were claimed to have no
8 SPE 99641
natural or hydraulic fracture. Moreover, usually gel treatment
does not really increase injection pressure very much, and
typically is less than the design.
Particle: Extensive experiments have been carried out to
study particle transport through porous media and results
showed the following rules:[14] (1) Dparticle>1/3Dpore throat,
particle will form external cake in the inlet of a porous
medium and this cake will prevent other particles into the
porous medium; (2) 3Dparticle<Dpore throat<9Dparticle, particle will
partially enter the porous medium and form internal cake but
the penetration depth is only a few centimeter; (3) 9Dparticle<D
pore throat, particle will smoothly move through the porous media
without significant plugging. The rule shows that such a
particle can penetrate in-depth of a reservoir only if its
diameter is smaller than 1/9 of pore throat diameter. Many
particles, such as clay, slurry and preformed gel particle have
been successfully injected into wells to control conformance.
The weight of dried particles is from a few tons to a few
hundreds tons and particle size is from 250 mesh to a few
mesh. No injectivity problem has been found so far. Table 4
shows the permeability of a formation that different size
particle can penetrate in-depth of a reservoir.
Tracer results and Table 4 may explain some questions
during conformance control treatments. For example,
(1) Why can weak gel reduce common core permeability
more than 95% but it could not improve starting injection
pressure after treatments.
(2) Why can gelant with viscosity of hundreds of
centipoises be easily injected into a well without any
injectivity problem.
One argument is whether Darcy law is suitable for
predicting fluid flow through mature reservoir. In all, high
permeability channels or streaks are very common in mature
oilfields in China, but no reasonable method can be used to
characterize them even though they are of major importance to
conformance control treatments.
5.2. In-depth fluid diversion technology
5.2.1. In-situ gel system
Although a large body of work has been done about in-situ
gel system, quite a few important issues still need be
addressed:
Possibility of Gelation for crosslink system: Gelant is
usually composed of a high molecular weight polymer and a
few other chemicals. The viscosity of polymer usually will
decrease greatly under stress of pumping and passage through
porous media. In addition, many other factors also influence
the gelation quality, such as, adsorption, chromatographic
separation of chemical components, dilution, pH and salinity,
and so on. Thus, a systematic study is necessary to provide all
of the required information for better designed gel treatments.
The difference of gelation reaction between dynamic and
static condition. A treated well is usually shut in after gelant
injection, however, the reservoir is still dynamic, so the
crosslnking process is usually at dynamic status. Studying
dynamic effects on crosslinking systems in porous media is
very important to predict gelation time and gel strength.
Damage of crosslinking system on low permeability oil
zone: Gelant behaves as a polymer solution before gelling, so
it will enter into low permeability zone much more than
injected water, according to polymer flooding theory. The gel
will greatly damage those zones if gelant forms gel in these
zones. So how to reduce gel damage of the low permeability
zone is of major importance to improve in-depth gel
treatments.
5.2.2. Preformed particle gel
Common PPG can only be injected into and move
through those porous media with permeability of about 10
Darcy or greater. Thus, developing a softer and a more
controllable swelling particle gel will aid in the application of
PPG in common reservoirs. In addition, PPG transport and
IOR mechanisms show be further investigated to provide
information particle transport through porous media, which is
major importance for predicting particle placement in
reservoirs.
5.3. Selectively water shutoff technology
Water shutoff treatments are rarely applied in China
recently because oilfields are maturing and water is almost
produced from each perforated layer. So how to selectively
control water production from producer is an urgent task.
5.4. Placement and optimization
The design of conformance control treatments need
consider both gel properties and reservoir conditions,
especially the characterization of fracture, vug and
channels/streaks. Proper design and design must consider the
distribution of these super high permeability zones/steaks and
gel/gelant transport properties through them. Current
reservoir simulators about conformance control treatments not
only cannot meet these requirements, but they also cannot
characterize the process where channel/streaks may gradually
form during a water flood.
Combination Technology of Conformance Control
Treatments and other Tertiary Oil Recovery Technology
Combination technologies not only can improve sweep
efficiency but they can improve displacement efficiency and
their pilots have shown promising results. However, further
research needs be performed, such as screening methods to
match chemicals to an application, optimization design
methods, etc.
5.5. Building Database for conformance control treatments
Many data from conformance control treatments are quite
important in our analysis of unknown mature reservoirs, such
as well performance before and after treatments, real time
response of pressure and injection rate during conformance
control agent injection, etc. These valuable data aid in
conformance control design and application result forecast.
Summary
This paper briefly reviewed current status and new
development of chemical-based conformance control
treatments in China oilfield, and pointed out the problems and
challenge that mature oilfields are facing for conformance
control treatments, and suggested a few research direction in
the future.
Acknowledgement
Most information in this paper is from Water Control and
Profile Conferences organized by China Petroleum Society,
which have been held every two years. Because these
documents are in Chinese, they are not listed in the following
SPE 99641 9

references. Authors really appreciate all the authors providing

the related information.

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10 SPE 99641

Table 2. Comparison of Three Gels Used as a Large Volume Treatment in China Oilfields.
Products Description Advantage Disadvantage Field Applications
• A crosslinked polyacrylimide • Strength- and size-controlled, • Particle size is relatively large. • Around 2000
particle environment-friendly; • Cannot be penetrate into treatments in chinese
• Gel is formed on surface facilities. • Gelation is affected by shear, formation below 1D mature oilfield since
• Particle dispersion is injected into chromatographic adsorption of • Can only be used in the 1999
formation. chemicals, dilution, dispersion and reservoirs with extreme • Covers both naturally
PPG • Swell 20-200 times of its original diffusion. permeability contrast fratured and unfractured
size when mixing with water. • High temperature (120 °C) and high reservoirs with
• Commerical particle size can be salinity (300,000 mg/L) resistance; temperature from 20 to
controlled from a few hundred • High salinity (300,000 mg/L) 110 C and salinity from
micron to a few centimeter. resistance; 2000 to 280,000 mg/l.
• Alternated slug injection of
gel/water.
• Gelant (Polymer + Crosslinker + • Bulk gel • Gelation is affected by shear Widely used
Additives) is injected into formation. • Can penetrate in-depth before and reaction of chemicals with in most China oilfields
Weak Bulk • Gelant forms gel under reservoir gelling. reservoir rocks and fluids.
Gel conditions. • Can be used to reduce permeability • Difficult to predict gelation time
• Polymer conc. usually between 1,000 of fractures or channels and strength due to the flowing
to 3,000 mg/l and reservoir effect.
• Dispersed colloid gel formed in • Dispersion weak gel • Easily penetrate and damage A few pilots in Daqing
reservoir. • Low chemical cost low permeability oil zones before and Shengli oilfields.
• Polymer conc. below 1000 mg/l • Microsize particle after forming gel. gelling
CDG • Cannot be used in reservoirs with • High injectivity due to relative low • Thermal and salt resistance
fractures or extremely high channels polymer concentration depends on polymer properties.

Table 3. PPG advantages over traditional in-situ gel.

PPG Bulk Polymer Gel
Chemical reaction Manufactured particle, no in-situ reactions Affected by interactions with reservoir rocks and fluids
Viscosity Suspension, low viscosity Bulk chemical solution, high viscosity
Temperature Resistance 120 ºC Depend on polymer, usually below 90 ºC
Salinity Resistance Any salt and concentration Depend on polymer, more sensitive to divalent cationic
Possible damage on formation SMART particle, Selectively enter super-K zones/interval. Like polymer flooding during injection. Gel may form in low
permeability zones
Preparation of Water Any convenient water Usually fresh water required
fluids mixing Quickly, well disperse At least 30-60 minutes
Consecutive, Alternated slugs of W/Chemicals not allowed
Injection Scheme Slug, Alternated injection of PPG/W
Pressure monitoring as an Quick, good diagnotic to adjust particle size, strength and Not a diagnostic for gel behavior.
indicator during injection conc.
Costs One composition Polymer+Crosslinker+ Additives
Environmental Friendly (Salty water) Fresh water usually required

Table 4. Calculated permeability of a formation that different particle can penetrate.

Size of Injected Particle Particle Diameter Permeability of porous media Permeability of porous media
(Mesh) (mm) at ratio of 1/3 (Darcy) at ratio of 1/9
(Darcy)
250 0.061 314 2825
200 0.074 462 4158
150 0.100 844 7490
100 0.154 1898 1.7×104
60 0.30 7594 6.8×104
40 0.45 1.7×104 1.5×105
4
20 0.9 6.8×10 6.2×105
10 2.0 3.4×105 3.0×106