Core Laboratories’ data describing the reservoir system are used by engineers, geologists,
and geophysicists worldwide to enhance hydrocarbon production so that it will exceed
the 40% average oilfield recovery factor. Two production enhancement methods commonly
used are hydraulic fracturing of the reservoir rock to improve flow and flooding
the field with water, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, or hydrocarbon gases to force more
oil and gas to the wellbore.
The most effective means of enhancing production is controlling formation damage,
the leading cause of underperforming wells worldwide. No one can do more than Core
Laboratories to identify, remediate, and minimize the damage to producing formations
that can occur during drilling and completion of a well.
Hydraulic fracturing is typically achieved by pumping a proppant material in a gel
slurry into the reservoir zone at extremely high pressures. This forces fractures
to open in the rock and “props” the fractures open so that reservoir fluids can
flow to the production wellbore.
Unfortunately, less than 50% of hydraulic fractures result in optimum production.
A thorough understanding of the reservoir system is necessary for success. And Core
Laboratories provides patented and proprietary completions diagnostics technology
to help you achieve it.
By coupling our data on rock types and strength you can ensure that proppants are
placed as they were intended in the stimulation design, enabling you to significantly
increase hydrocarbon production.
In addition, Core Laboratories’ testing indicates whether the gel slurry is compatible
with the reservoir fluids so that the porous rock network is not damaged.
An oilfield can yield additional quantities of hydrocarbons when an operator floods
the producing zone with water, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, or a miscible gas. When
our reservoir description datasets are combined with dynamic flow tests run in our
laboratories, a field flood program can be implemented to maximize hydrocarbon recovery.
We conduct dynamic flow tests of the reservoir fluids through the reservoir rock,
at actual reservoir pressure and temperature, to realistically simulate the actual
flooding of a producing zone.
The success of a flood design can be bolstered by using our proprietary field flood
tracer technologies to track the movement of the flooding agent. This enables you
to identify injection flow patterns and pinpoint fluid breakthrough paths. This
information can be used to remediate breakthroughs or short circuits, improving
the benefit of the flooding agent; therefore, increasing recovery of hydrocarbons.
Formation damage limits daily production and severely reduces the ultimate recovery
from the field by up to 25%. These economics make the avoidance and mitigation of
formation damage a top priority. To ensure the maximum return possible, you frequently
have to stimulate the reservoir to yield additional production. The reservoir rock
and fluid data dictate the most effective way to complete the well and stimulate
the formation. If it is completed improperly, the producing formation will be damaged;
and hydrocarbon flow to the wellbore will be impaired.
Core Laboratories provides well completion perforating gun systems specifically
designed to minimize formation damage while maximizing the communication, or transmissibility,
between the producing formation and the wellbore. Core is in the best position to
recommend patented and proprietary perforating systems and prepare the reservoir
Reservoir production is significantly enhanced whenever formation damage can be
controlled. Formation damage is a multi-billion-dollar/year problem for the oil
and gas industry; and no one can do more to identify, remediate, and minimize formation
damage than Core Laboratories.