One of our ChemTerra colleagues, Harvey Quintero, will be in California this week to present his latest paper – Enhanced Proppant Suspension in a Fracturing Fluid Through Capillary Bridges. This paper describes a novel fracturing fluid where through inducing capillary bridges proppant sands become part of the fluid structure rather than being a burden to be carried by the fluid system. This new fracturing fluid offers a unique and superior proppant transport mechanism, under a wide range of shear stress and rate conditions, without the need for conventional polymers and/or cross-linkers. Harvey will present the field cases that show the successful proppant placement where other conventional fracturing fluids have failed/screened-out. The paper also shows lab analysis that indicated >100% regained permeability. In proppant settling tests, there was no proppant settling in a 5-hour period with 4.17 lb/gal (500 kg/m3) of 30/50 U.S mesh size proppant at a simulated BHT of 158°F (70°C). In addition, there was a 33% increase in sand pack volume when compared to a borate-XL guar slurry equivalent. ChemTerra is excited to share this pioneering technology at the SPE Western Regional Meeting, but if you are not able to attend you can find Harvey’s paper at – https://lnkd.in/giUzwA8
