APHRONICS
Unfortunately, the days of “easy oil” are almost coming to an end. More and more oil and gas operators are faced with the need to develop low-yield, low-pressure fields or return to the development of old, depleted productive horizons in previously drilled fields.
At the same time, drilling, completion and overhaul of wells in such fields are significantly complicated by abnormally low reservoir pressures. Many productive horizons that have been in development since the 50s of the last century have a reservoir pressure gradient below 0.8 g/cm3, and in some fields it is already approaching 0.4 g/cm3. Among the most noticeable complications traditionally associated with the primary and secondary penetration of depleted horizons are frequent differential sticking, significant reservoir contamination due to catastrophic losses of drilling fluid and completion fluids and the accompanying difficulty in calling inflow and reduction in flow rate.
Specifically for solving such problems to open and complete depleted horizons, a new technology of working fluids based on gas microbubbles (N2) has been developed. This new family of working fluids, called APHRONICS, allows you to completely eliminate loss and absorption of solution in any permeable horizons with an anomaly coefficient of up to 0.15-0.2.
Thanks to the unique properties of aphrons, APHRONICS allows you to create an elastic impermeable barrier in the bottomhole zone of the productive horizon or an absorption layer, which allows you to prevent loss of solution during well flushing with repression up to 150-200 atm. Since APHRONICS does not contain solids or cross-linking polymers, the solution can be easily and completely removed from the PZP by applying a depression of 5-10 atm. during influx call and well development.