Water Shutoff Polymer/Gel Treatments for Oil or Gas Production Wells

IFP water shutoff technology is based on the use of Disproportionate Permeability Reducers (DPRs), i.e., polymers or weak gels that reduce selectively the relative permeability to water with respect to the relative permeability to oil or to gas. The products are usually injected into the whole open interval, without zonal isolation, which is a very attractive option compared to plugging gels proposed by service companies. IFP DPR products are water-soluble polymers, which are either swelled or weakly cross-linked in situ to increase permeability reduction to water, without impairing oil or gas permeability. The chemicals have been chosen to have minimal environmental impact. Each combination covers a specific domain of temperature and salinity.

IFP water shutoff processes have been applied in a broad range of well and reservoir conditions, thus showing a high potential for future developments. Treatment design has to be adapted to each specific case. It requires both laboratory work to optimize gel formulation, and reservoir simulations with an in-house WSO model, to size up gel slug and gel strength. Several successful field cases are described, including gas wells, heavy-oil horizontal wells, and multi-layer water-flooded wells.