Designed & Presented by

Mr. QUANG KHNH, HCMUT

Quang Khnh HoChiMinh City University of Technology 1

Email: dqkhanh@hcmut.edu.vn or doquangkhanh@yahoo.com
 What is Formation Damage?
Damage can be anything that obstructs the normal ow of uids
to the surface.

Formation damage specically refers to obstructions occurring in

the near-wellbore region of the rock matrix.=> Concerns the
formation of a volume of rock with a reduced permeability in the
near wellbore zone.

Ultimate economics usually favor control of formation damage

rather than stimulation to overcome limited productivity.
 Sources of Formation Damage
Damage during drilling operations

Damage during completion operations

Damage during well stimulation

Damage caused by other operations

 Damage during drilling operations
Mud solids may block pores, vugs, and natural or induced fractures.

Mud filtrate invasion into oil and gas zones may oil-wet the formation and cause water or
emulsion blocks.

Pore or fractures near the wellbore may be sealed by the trowelling action of the bit, drill collars
and drill pipe.

Cement or mud solids may plug large pores, vugs, and natural or induced fractures.

Chemical flushes used to scour hole ahead of cement may cause changes in clays in the
producing formation.

Filtrate from high fluid loss cement slurries may bring about changes in the producing formation.
 Damage during completion operations
Damage during perforating
Perforations may be plugged with shaped charge debris and solids from perforating fluids.
Formation around perforation is crushed and compacted by perforating process.
Damage while running tubing and packer
If returns are lost while running tubing, solids in the well fluid may plug any fracture system near the
wellbore
Perforations may be plugged if solids are forced into perforations by the hydrostatic differential
pressure into the formation.
Damage during production initiation
Damage may be caused by incompatible circulation fluids and by loss of clays or another fines into
perforation pores, vugs.
Damage may result from depositing of mill scale, clay, or excess thread dope from tubing collars in
perforation when circulating to clean a well.
Completion fluids containing blown asphalt may cause damage by oil-wetting the formation and by
plugging perforations and formation.
Clean-up of a well at high rates can result in severe plugging within the formation by particles which,
for one reason or another, are free to move.
 Damage during well stimulation
Perforations, formation pores, and fractures may be plugged with solids while killing or circulating a
well with mud or with unfiltered oil or water.

Damage may be caused by filtrate from circulating fluids.

Breaking down or fracturing the formation with acid may shrink the mud cake between the sand face
and cement or may affect mud channel in the annulus allowing vertical communication of unwanted
fluids.

Acidizing sandstone with hydrofluoric acid may leave insoluble precipitates in formation. Properly
designed treatment minimizes effect.

Damage may be caused by hydraulic fracturing fluids.

Damage may be caused by incompatible fluid in fracture acidizing of carbonates.

 Damage caused by other operations
Damage caused by cleaning of paraffin solids from the tubing, casing, or wellbore

Damage during well servicing or workover

Damage during producing phase

Damage during water injection

Damage during gas injection

 Common Formation Damage Mechanisms
1. Fines invasion and migration (particles, etc.)

2. Rock-fluid incompatibility (clay swelling, etc.)

3. Fluid-fluid incompatibility (emulsion generation, etc.)

4. Phase trapping and blocking (water entrapment in gas reservoirs)

5. Adsorption and wettability alteration

6. Biological activity (bacteria, slime production).

 Particle Plugging within the Formation
The pore system provides a tortuous path to the wellbore

Particles can move through the pore system.

Particle movement is affected by wettability and by the fluid

phases in the pore system.
Particulate Capture Mechanisms

Straining Bridging

DEPOSITION FLOW

ENTRAINMENT
Solid particles

TYPICAL HYDRAULIC TUBE

Bridging Mechanism

Flat bridges Arch bridges No bridges

(after Valdes and Santamarina, 2006)

Bridging of Particles at Perforation
Average Particle Diameter

No Bridging well
Perforation Diameter

bridging
4

Bridging Region

2
perforation

4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32

Maximum Gravel Content LB/GAL

(After Gruesbeck and Collins, 1982)
 Exponential-law equation

A 1 exp B Re p C

A, B, and C are empirical parameters

A 1 exp B Re p C
Pore-to-particle diameter ratio
6
D
T
Dp
4
Bridging Region
Particle-Volume-Fraction Reynolds number
2
p p vDp
Re p

4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32

Rep

(Tran et al. 2009, SPE 120847)

 Formation Clays (Inherent Particles)
Oil-producing sandstones contain clays as a coating on
individual sand grains. (clean sand contains 1-5% clay, dirty
sand contains 5 to greater than 20% clay)

Common clays: smectite (bentonite), illite, mixed-layer clays

(primarily illite-smectile), kaolinite, and chlorite.
 Clay Migration
Clay migrate when contacting with foreign water which alters the
ionic environment.

Foreign waters are filtrate loss from drilling fluids, cement,

completion fluids, workover fluids, and stimulation fluids.

Other effects: swelling due to hydration cations, cation type and

concentration, and pH.
 Diagnosis of Formation Damage
Determine formation damage or skin effect in a particular
well.
Analysis of pressure buildup or fall off tests.

Production logging surveys.

Comparison of productivity of the subject well with productivities of

surrounding wells.

Rule out mechanical problems such as sand accumulation in the

wellbore or artificial lift difficulties.
 Skin Formulation
St = Si (Total skin is sum of components)
= Sd + Sc+ + Sp + Spseudo

Formation Damage (Sd)

Mechanical damage to near-well formation

Partial Penetration Skin Sc+

Partial completion (Sc)
Slanted (deviated) wellbore (Sdev)

Perforation Skin (Sd)

Non-Darcy Flow (Turbulence damage) (Spseudo)
 Near Wellbore Area
Drilling, cementing, and completion alter reservoir conditions near the well.

Distortion or restriction of flow.

Additional near wellbore pressure drop - skin.

Characterized with:
Damage permeability, ks

Damage radius, rs
 Wellbore Skin Effect

Positive Skin Effect:

denotes that the pressure drop in the near wellbore zone is more
than it would have been, from the normal, undisturbed,
reservoir flow mechanism.
Modifications to IPR

Pwf (no skin)

Pwf (with skin)

Near Wellbore Pressure Drop

ps
pwf, ideal

pwf, real
 Positive Skin Effect
Any phenomenon that causes a distortion of the flow lines from the
perfectly normal to the well direction, or a restriction to flow,
would result in a positive value of skin.
damage to the natural reservoir permeability
partial completion (distortion of flow lines)
inadequate number of perforations (distortion of flow lines)
phase changes (relative permeability reduction to the main fluid)
turbulence (rate dependent)
 Negative Skin Effect
A negative skin effect denotes that the pressure drop in near
wellbore zone is less than it would have been from the
normal, undisturbed, reservoir flow mechanism.

It may be the result of:

Acid matrix stimulation

Hydraulic fracturing

A highly declined wellbore

 Math. Development of Damage Skin
Steady-state pressure drop between outer boundary of
damage zone (rs) and wellbore (rw)

Ideal case (no damage zone)

Real case (damage zone with permeability of ks)

 Math. Development of Damage Skin
Pressure drop due to damage:

Skin effect defined as additional steady-state pressure drop

in the near-wellbore region
 Hawkins Formula Skin Factor
Since difference between ideal and real wellbore pressure is
due to skin effect:

Hence

Solving for s:
Another Derivation of Skin
 Example: Permeability Impairment
Versus Damage Penetration
A well with radius rw equal to 0.328 ft and damage penetration 3 ft
beyond well (rs= 3.328 ft).
1) What is skin effect if permeability impairment results in k/ks = 5
and 10, respectively?

2) What would be the required damage depth to give same skin as

with k/ks=10 but the actual permeability impairment being k/ks =
5?
 Solution
1) From Hawkins formula, calculate skin for each permeability
impairment:
For k/ks = 5

For k/ks = 10

2) Since skin is 20.9 for k/ks = 10 and using k/ks = 5, re-arrange

Hawkins formula for damage penetration:
 Rate Dependent Pseudo Skins Spseudo
The pseudo-skins include all phase and rate dependent effects
Turbulence in high-rate gas procedures ( affect very high-rate oil wells)
This skin effect is equal to Dq
s = s + Dq
s' apparent Skin
s actual Skin
D Non-Darcy coefficient
q well test rate
 Phase Dependent Skin Spseudo
Near wellbore phase changes

Flowing bottomhole pressure is below the bubble point

pressure, in the case of oil wells

Liquid formation around the well, in the case of gas

retrograde condensate reservoirs.

Relative Permeability effects

 Partial Penetration Skin Sc+
Sc+ = Sc + S
Skin due to partial completion Sc
Bending of flowlines
Positive Skin

Skin due to well deviation S

High angle, large negative Skin

Perforated height < reservoir thickness

Effect becomes negligible when completion height > 75% of reservoir
thickness
 Partial Penetration Skin Sc+
z w : elevation of the perforation midpoint from the base of the reservoir

hw : perforated height

h:reservoir height

r w : well radius

: angle of well deviation

Cinco-Ley et al 1975: Tables 1 and 2

Partial Penetration Skin Sc+
Partial Penetration Skin Sc+
 Ex: Partial Penetration Skin Sc+
A well with a radius r w =0.328 ft is completed in a 33 ft
reservoir. In order to avoid severe water coning problems, only 8
ft are completed and the midpoint of the perforation is 29 ft
above the base of the reservoir. Calculate the skin effect due to
partial completion for a vertical well. What would be the
composite skin effect if =45deg ?

Solution:

a)r w =0.328 ft; h=33 ft; h w =8 ft; z w =29 ft; =0

hD =100; zw /h=0.875; hw/h=0.25

sc =8.6 & s =0 > s c+ =8.6

b) =45deg =>s c =8.6 & s =2.7 > s c+ 6

Skin effect due to Partial Completion
Skin effect due to Slant wells
Perforation Skin Sp

the horizontal skin (Sh ),

the wellbore skin (Swb ),
the vertical skin (Sv ) &
the crushed zone skin (Sc )
 Perforation Skin Sp
the horizontal skin (Sh ):

the wellbore skin (Swb ):

the vertical skin (Sv ):

the crushed zone skin (Sc )

=>This allows the calculation of the overall skin for the

combination of damage and perforation (Sdp).
 Perforation Skin Sp
The method varies depending on whether the perforation
terminates inside the damaged zone or not.

For perforations terminating inside the damaged zone (lp < ld )

For the (hopefully) more

relevant case of perforations that
extend beyond the damage zone
(lp>ld), the perforation length and
wellbore radius are modied:
 Ex. of Perforation Skin Sp
Ex:

A sensitivity analysis: