TY - JOUR
T1 - Empirical modeling of the viscosity of supercritical carbon dioxide foam fracturing fluid under different downhole conditions
AU - Ahmed, Shehzad
AU - Elraies, Khaled Abdalla
AU - Hashmet, Muhammad Rehan
AU - Alnarabiji, Mohamad Sahban
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments: The authors would like to acknowledge the Petroleum Engineering Department and Centre of Research in Enhanced Oil Recovery (COEOR) at Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS for the funding (YUTP-0153AA-E70) and the technical assistance. This work is supported by PETRONAS Research Bhd and authors greatly acknowledge the technical support and laboratory setup. We also would like to acknowledge Chandler Engineering for the technical support related to the equipment and the methods. Evonik and Akzonobel are also acknowledged for supplying the surfactant samples.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 by the authors.
PY - 2018/4
Y1 - 2018/4
N2 - High-quality supercritical CO2 (sCO2) foam as a fracturing fluid is considered ideal for fracturing shale gas reservoirs. The apparent viscosity of the fracturing fluid holds an important role and governs the efficiency of the fracturing process. In this study, the viscosity of sCO2 foam and its empirical correlations are presented as a function of temperature, pressure, and shear rate. A series of experiments were performed to investigate the effect of temperature, pressure, and shear rate on the apparent viscosity of sCO2 foam generated by a widely used mixed surfactant system. An advanced high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) foam rheometer was used to measure the apparent viscosity of the foam over a wide range of reservoir temperatures (40-120°C), pressures (1000-2500 psi), and shear rates (10-500 s-1). A well-known power law model was modified to accommodate the individual and combined effect of temperature, pressure, and shear rate on the apparent viscosity of the foam. Flow indices of the power law were found to be a function of temperature, pressure, and shear rate. Nonlinear regression was also performed on the foam apparent viscosity data to develop these correlations. The newly developed correlations provide an accurate prediction of the foam's apparent viscosity under different fracturing conditions. These correlations can be helpful for evaluating foam-fracturing efficiency by incorporating them into a fracturing simulator.
AB - High-quality supercritical CO2 (sCO2) foam as a fracturing fluid is considered ideal for fracturing shale gas reservoirs. The apparent viscosity of the fracturing fluid holds an important role and governs the efficiency of the fracturing process. In this study, the viscosity of sCO2 foam and its empirical correlations are presented as a function of temperature, pressure, and shear rate. A series of experiments were performed to investigate the effect of temperature, pressure, and shear rate on the apparent viscosity of sCO2 foam generated by a widely used mixed surfactant system. An advanced high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) foam rheometer was used to measure the apparent viscosity of the foam over a wide range of reservoir temperatures (40-120°C), pressures (1000-2500 psi), and shear rates (10-500 s-1). A well-known power law model was modified to accommodate the individual and combined effect of temperature, pressure, and shear rate on the apparent viscosity of the foam. Flow indices of the power law were found to be a function of temperature, pressure, and shear rate. Nonlinear regression was also performed on the foam apparent viscosity data to develop these correlations. The newly developed correlations provide an accurate prediction of the foam's apparent viscosity under different fracturing conditions. These correlations can be helpful for evaluating foam-fracturing efficiency by incorporating them into a fracturing simulator.
KW - Apparent viscosity
KW - Pressure
KW - SCO foam
KW - Temperature
KW - Viscosity correlation
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U2 - 10.3390/en11040782
DO - 10.3390/en11040782
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85045409994
SN - 1996-1073
VL - 11
JO - Energies
JF - Energies
IS - 4
M1 - 782
ER -