Development of Polymer-Based Treatments for Water Shutoff in Oil Wells

This proposal concerns the development of a polymeric composition to be used as water shutoff materials in oil and gas producing wells. Excessive production of water from reservoir formations can be due to many factors, like formation fractures, water coning due to high production rates, the existence of micro-cracks in the cementing sheath around casings, high oil/water viscosity ratio and when perforations intervals are near a water zone. Most oil wells are producing by natural water drive and will produce water at sometime during production period. Excessive water production can reach 80% to 90% of oil well production. Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) reports that about 0.8 MBPD of formation water is being produced daily and this is expected to reach about 7.0 MBPD by the year 2020. In general, excessive water production causes many problems like disposal problems, pollution problems, reduction of oil production, and many others. Much research has been carried out over the past three decades. Polymer gels were among the most successful treatments that were effecting in reducing the amount of water produced. However, these polymeric systems suffer from several drawbacks, like high cost, lack of thermal stability and lack of durability, and can cause significant reduction in the formation permeability towards production and many others. Therefore, the major objective of this proposal is to develop an effective and economical polymer composition that can be used as a water shutoff treatment. These compositions will be prepared from mostly locally produced raw materials. These compositions will be characterized and their performance evaluated on an actual reservoir sand in the laboratory