Abstract
Conformance problems often exist in natural gas-related activities, resulting in excessive water production from natural gas production wells and/or excessive natural gas production from oil production wells. Several mechanical and chemical solutions were reported in the literature to mitigate the conformance problems. Among the chemical solutions, two classes of materials, namely polymer gels and water-soluble polymers, have been mostly reported. These systems have been mainly reviewed in several studies for their applications as water shutoff treatments for oil production wells. Natural gas production wells exhibit different characteristics and have different properties which could impact the performance of the chemical solutions. However, there has not been any work done on reviewing the applications of these systems for the challenging natural gas-related shutoff treatments. This study provides a comprehensive review of the laboratory evaluation and field applications of these systems used for water control in natural gas production wells and gas shutoff in oil production wells, respectively. The first part of the paper reviews the in-situ polymer gel systems, where both organically and inorganically crosslinked systems are discussed. The second part presents the water-soluble polymers with a focus on their disproportionate permeability reduction feature for controlling water in gas production wells. The review paper provides insights into the reservoir conditions, treatment design and intervention, and the success rate of the systems applied. Furthermore, the outcomes of the paper will provide knowledge regarding the limitations of the existing technologies, current challenges, and potential paths forwards.
Recommended Citation
A. Al Brahim et al., "Comprehensive Review of Polymer and Polymer Gel Treatments for Natural Gas-Related Conformance Control," Gels, vol. 8, no. 6, article no. 353, MDPI, Jun 2022.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.3390/gels8060353
Department(s)
Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering
Second Department
Chemistry
Keywords and Phrases
Conformance Control; Disproportionate Permeability Reduction; Natural Gas; Polymer Gel Systems; Polymers
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
2310-2861
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2022 The Authors, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Publication Date
01 Jun 2022
