SPE 112750

Production Enhancement in Gas-Condensate Reservoirs by Altering

Wettability to Gas Wetness: Field Application
Yijiang Liu, SPE, Hongwen Zheng, Guixiong Huang, Ganqin Li, Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau;
and Kewen Li, SPE, Peking U. and Stanford U.
Copyright 2008, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2008 SPE/DOE Improved Oil Recovery Symposium held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.A., 1923April2008.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its
officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to
reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.


Abstract
Liquid condensation in the rock near wellbore may kill gas production in gas-condensate reservoirs when pressure drops
lower than the dew point. It has been proved both theoretically and experimentally that gas production in gas-condensate
reservoirs could be improved by altering wettability of rock near wellbore from liquid wetness to gas wetness. However, to
our best knowledge, few field applications have been reported. In this study, a pilot test was designed based on experimental
results measured in the rock sampled from the target gas-condensate reservoir. The gas-condensate field, located in central
China, was a high temperature and low permeability reservoir with a permeability of less than 0.1 md. About 30,000 litters of
chemical solution were injected into a well in the gas-condensate field. The test results showed that the gas production of the
well was increased significantly.

Introduction
Wettability alteration has been an approach to enhancing oil recovery, which has been widely studied in oil-water-rock
systems
1-11
but has not been in gas-liquid (oil or water)-rock systems
12-16
. This may be because it is more difficult to alter the
wettability in gas-liquid (oil or water)-rock systems than in oil-water-rock systems. Production of natural gas around the
world keeps increasing in recent years. There have been many problems during the gas production in low permeability gas or
gas-condensate reservoirs
17-20
. In tight gas reservoirs, it is usually necessary to conduct acid-fracturing to improve gas
production. The problem is the low liquid return rate after stimulation of acid fracturing which may cause serious secondary
formation damage
21
. If the wettability of rock in tight gas reservoirs were changed from water wetness to gas wetness, the
liquid return rate might be increased and therefore the gas production might be improved. In gas-condensate reservoirs, the
gas production may drop due to the liquid build-up near the wellbore as pressure drops below the dew point.
More and more attention has been paid to the wettability alteration in gas-liquid-rock systems to attack the above
challenges. Li and Firoozabadi have demonstrated that the wettability alteration to gas-wetness promising to enhancing gas
recovery both theoretically
12
and experimentally
15
. Later Lis group
16
conducted experiments to change the wettability to
preferential gas-wetness using real reservoir rocks with a low permeability of less than 0.1 md.
Recently, Panga et al.
14
studied the application of fluorocarbon surfactants at different temperatures of 25 and 126 to
change the wettability to gas wetness. Three types of experiments (measurement of contact angle, spontaneous imbibition and
2 SPE 112750
gas flooding) were conducted to test the wettability alteration, the stability of the chemicals at high temperature, desorption
and longevity of the treatment. Panga et al.
14
focused on the selection of chemicals according to temperature stability, long
term desorption etc which are essential in field application. One of the main concerns was the formation damage caused by
chemical treatment. The formation damage could increase the capillary pressure. In some cases, it was observed that the
increase in capillary pressure due to formation damage outweighed the reduction in capillary pressure by the wettability
alteration. Thus the wettability alteration was rendered ineffective.
The original motive for Li and Firoozabadi
12,15
to change the wettability from water (or oil ) wetness to gas wetness was
for the reduction of liquid blocking in the region near wellbore caused by retrograde condensation in gas-condensate
reservoirs. Note that the wettability alteration to gas wetness may also be applied in drilling and completion to reduce the
water loss to tight gas formation, in water shut-off in tight gas reservoirs with bottom water, and acid-fracturing to contain
secondary formation damage in low permeability gas reservoirs.
Penny et al.
13
used a chemical in gas well fracturing treatments to enhance the water recovery by reducing the capillary
pressure. Their laboratory and field data show significant improvement in water recovery after treating the formation with the
chemical.
Although it has been proved both theoretically and experimentally that production in gas or gas-condensate reservoirs
could be improved by altering wettability of rock near wellbore from liquid wetness to gas wetness, few field tests have been
reported. In this study, a pilot test was designed based on experimental results measured in the rock sampled from the target
gas-condensate reservoir and was conducted in the same well. Some of the results were presented and discussed. Also
discussed were some lessons from the field test.

Pilot Field Test
According to our previous experimental results, the relative permeabilities of gas phase were increased significantly after the
wettability was altered to gas-wet. The residual water saturation was also decreased and the gas production was enhanced due
to the wettability alteration to gas-wetness. Because of the promising experimental results, decision was made to choose one
gas production well in Dongpu gas condensate reservoir, located in Henan, China, to conduct a pilot field test. This reservoir
had a very low permeability (less than 0.1 md) and a high temperature of around 160
o
C. The initial reservoir pressure was
about 66.8 MPa. The depth of the target production formation in the gas production well chosen (Well A1) was at about
4518.0. Table 1 summarizes the properties of the production formation.
The gas production was very low because of the low permeability and the liquid blocking caused by retrograde
condensation near the wellbore. Different types of measures, including large scale fracturing, were conducted in Dongpu gas
condensate reservoir. However the gas production was not enhanced significantly.
Fig. 1 shows the pressure decline in the producing and casing tubes in Well A1 after fracturing. The corresponding
change in oil and gas production is plotted in Fig. 2. Oil and gas production increased with the decrease in producing pressure
in the beginning but then decreased significantly within several days. The well was almost killed in less than a month. This is
the typical feature of production in gas-condensate reservoirs. The similar feature of production in gas-condensate reservoirs
was reported by Bamum
19
(see Fig. 3).
Chemical WA12 was used to treat the chosen well in order to improve the production by changing the wettability to gas
wetness. The chemical (WA12) was a fluorocarbon surfactant and had different properties from traditional carbon-hydrogen
surfactant. The hydrophobic tail of the fluorocarbon surfactant is constituted of carbon-fluorine chains, instead of carbon-
hydrogen chains, which is the difference between traditional and fluorocarbon surfactants. Because carbon-fluorine bond is
SPE 112750 3
shorter, stronger than carbon-hydrogen bond and hard to be polarized, fluorocarbon surfactants have the remarkable
characteristics of high surface activity, high thermal stability, high chemistry stability and hydrophobia, oil-phobia.
The chemical (WA12) was tested before being applied to the field test
16
. According to the experimental results, both the
gas and the water phase relative permeability values were increased significantly as well as the recovery and gas production
after the wettability of the low permeability rock was altered from preferential water-wetness to gas-wetness by the chemical
treatments. The chemical compound was thermally stable at a temperature of 170
o
C (note that the formation temperature was
about 160
o
C) and was also stable at a salinity of about 70000 ppm.
There were two production layers in Well A1. About 30,000 litters of solution with a concentration of 1% (wt) chemical
WA12 were injected into the lower layer of Well A1. The injection rate was about 500 litter/minute. Gas production was
resumed after the well was soaked with the chemical solution for about 24 hours. The test results showed that the gas
production of the well was increased to about 30000 m
3
/day, which was much higher than the gas production before the
stimulation of wettability alteration (see Fig. 1). Unfortunately the gas production declined very fast and four days later the
gas production was only around 4000 m
3
/day, about 200% increase compared to the gas production before the stimulation of
wettability alteration.
The well was shut off to prepare another acid fracturing for the upper layer. All of the production tubings were pulled out
and it was found that the first 130 production tubings were full of almost-solid crude oil. This was caused by the high paraffin
content (40.22%) in the crude oil; the solidification point of the crude oil was around 39
o
C. Note that it was winter time and
the temperature was about 2
o
C.
The possible reasons to cause the fast decline in gas production after the stimulation of wettability alteration were
speculated as follows: (1) low permeability; (2) high oil viscosity (6.7 cp at reservoir temperature); (3) high paraffin content
in crude oil, it might cause the blocking of the production tubings; (4) the amount of chemical solution might not be enough;
(5) others (the upper production tubings were not heated during the production).
Some of the lessons learned from this field test: (1) the well should not be shut off once the gas production was resumed
after the stimulation of wettability alteration. Well A1 was shut off for one day during the production because of the leaking
at the well head. The shut-off might have caused the liquid oil and water accumulated at the bottom of the well; (2) choose
production wells instead of appraisal wells. Well A1 was actually an appraisal well without much production history.

Conclusions
The following conclusions may be drawn according to the results obtained in the present study:
1. The treatment of wettability alteration to gas wetness using a fluorocarbon surfactant was applied to a gas condensate
well in Dongpu field and it was found that the gas production was increased significantly. However the increase in gas
production was not sustained. The main possible reasons might be due to the extremely low permeability and high
viscosity of liquid condensate;
2. It may be better to choose a production well with a well-known production history than an appraisal well with a very
short or even no production history;
3. It is necessary to investigate the screening criteria (for example, the lower limit of permeability) to apply the treatment of
wettability alteration to gas wetness.
4 SPE 112750

Acknowledgements
This research was conducted with financial support from Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, the contribution of
which and the permission for publication are gratefully acknowledged.

References
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Table 1: Properties of formation

Depth of formation (m) 4518.0
Formation pressure, MPa 66.8
Formation temperature,
o
C 160
Salinity of formation water, ppm 70000
Porosity (%) 8.93
Permeability (md) 0.083

6 SPE 112750
0
10
20
30
40
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60
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Time, day
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e
s
s
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a
Pressure in producing tube
Pressure in casing tube
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r
e
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s
u
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Pressure in casing tube
Pressure in producing tube
Pressure in casing tube


Fig. 1: Pressure decline in producing and casing tubes after fracturing in Well A1.


0
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Fig. 2: Change in oil and gas production after fracturing in Well A1.


SPE 112750 7
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Fig. 3: Pressure and production change in a gas-condensate reservoir (Bamum
19
).