New Generation Fracturing Fluid

Abstract In the past, high-viscosity fluids have been the preferred method for increased proppant suspension and transport. This methodology has been effective using systems such as borate-crosslinked fluid with the downside of considerable damage to the proppant pack, typically resulting in about 85% percent regain conductivity. While this may still be acceptable, the major limitation of these systems is the additional loss of needed fracture length. Often, with low viscosity fluids such as linear gels and friction reducers, fracture length may be established allowing breaks into the secondary fractures and mechanical reactivation of the pre-existing natural fracture network may be enhanced. However, these low viscosity fluids cannot offer efficient suspending characteristics within the fracture under static conditions, which may lead to early settling. As a response to this industry demand, a novel fluid has been developed to optimize the hydraulic fracturing process by enhancing proppant transport with reduced friction losses, less fresh water requirements and smaller footprint of pressure pumping equipment. Novel fluid technology from which the polymer was engineered to form a network of packed structures from polymer associations providing the maximum proppant suspension, breaking with the traditional concept relying on viscosity to enhance proppant transport during treatments, is described with extensive experimental testing. The results show that the fluid exhibits outstanding properties and benefits to transport proppant without settling in addition to a considerable reduction in fresh water requirements and maintenance costs associated with surface equipment footprint, as the current trend is unsustainable. New physics consisting of a hybrid rheology analytical model and fluid structures to correlate elastic fluids rheology parameters, firstly, n′ and k′ values, and secondly the storage, and loss moduli profile (G′ and G″ accordingly), is presented. The complex fluid behavior deviates from common rheology models and, its elastic properties, such as storage modulus (G′), loss modulus (G″), and angular frequency (rad-sec) are discussed in the context of the unique fluid characteristics of a network of packed structures from polymer associations. Physics-based analytical model results compute the viscosity, and elastic parameters based on shear rate to calculate the pressure losses along the flow path from surface lines, tubular goods, perforations, and fracture, optimizing horse power requirements based on reduced pressure loses, will be presented [16]. The presentation will demonstrate that such physics and unique fluid behavior are achieved via a novel elastic and a network of packed structures from accociative polymer fluid, having proper proppant suspension, effectively placed at low viscosity, less fresh water requirement, low injection pressures, with no settling and 98% retained conductivities.