Experimental Core Flooding Test for Formation Damage During Gel Treatment

Abstract In mature oil fields, the success of gel treatment results depends on the ability of the gel to reduce the high permeable formation without damaging to low permeable formation. Formation damage refers to the extent of damage reservoir rocks face from various drilling techniques and/or chemical treatment during well completion. A dynamic filtration test was used to investigate this effect using distinct core samples, brine concentrations and preformed particle gels. The effect of high pressures applied on the particle gels on various core samples with various permeability ranges was determined. These gels were pushed into the core holder with samples and the core permeability change was calculated. Different constant pressures were used to push the piston behind the gel samples. Then, the gel was flown around the core sample and collected in the outlet container. Various hardware was used to tighten the apparatus and provide connection between brine source, syringe pump, piston accumulator, core holder, and flow outlet container. The damage on the core was evaluated by comparing the original core permeability and the core permeability after gel treatments. Pressure gauges were used to measure the pressure drop across the core samples. The penetration of the particle gels into the low permeable formations can be decreased by the best selection of gel types, particle sizes, and brine concentrations under the reservoir condition. This work results can be used to select the best gel types for the right reservoir condition such as reservoir permeability, and reservoir pressure.