Surfactants and microemulsions as flow conditioners for reservoirs

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The application seeks to understand the role of surfactants and terpene (orange oils) microemulsions infacilitating the transport of oil and gas through tight formations. This information will be of particular interestto the research partner, Engineered Chemistries Inc. (ECI), for the selection of appropriate complex nanofluids(CnF®, terpene microemulsions) for hydraulic fracturing and well stimulation operations, considering thegeochemistry of the reservoir.Nanofluid selection is informed by flowback experiments conducted on packed bed of drill cuttings obtainedfrom the reservoir. However, the heterogeneity of the cuttings prevents one from identifying specificinteractions between CnF® and the minerals in the formation. Knowing these interactions (surface energies,wettability, permeability, surfactant/ terpene adsorption) will help identifying areas of concerns andopportunities. Furthermore, changes in electrolyte concentration and temperature can also bring about changesin the surfactant-terpene-mineral interaction.To address these gaps, the surface energies of surfactant/CnF®-gas, surfactant/CnF®-oil interfaces, and thewettability of oil/gas/(surfactant/CnF®) on known minerals (quartz, feldspar, calcite, and asphaltene-coatedglass used to simulate kerogen deposits) will be determined. The adsorption of surfactant/CnF® will also bedetermined, along with the transport properties of surfactant/CnF® applied to the columns packed with theminerals of interest. The transport properties (flowback experiments) will be taken as a preliminary efficacytest for these formulations. The formulation conditions will be assessed via thehydrophilic-lipophilic-difference (HLD) framework, which considers the intrinsic hydrophobicities of thesurfactant and oil, the concentration and type of electrolyte, and the temperature of the system. We hypothesizethat the adsorption of surfactant and terpene influences the transport properties, and the HLD can be used toidentify the best CnF® formulation for a given formation geochemistry.