Polymer-gel water-shutoff treatments are emerging in the petroleum industry as an effective and attractive means, in numerous instances, to cost-effectively reduce excessive, detrimental, and costly water production that is directly competing with oil or gas production.

This polymer-gel-technology talk will:
• Briefly review conformance and excessive-water-production problems and review which types of these problems can be effectively treated with polymer gels,
• Provide a brief introduction to oilfield water-shutoff polymer gels,
• Review a series of illustrative field applications of successful polymer-gel water-shutoff treatments,
• Review what 15 plus years of experience in applying polymer-gel water-shutoff treatments has taught us, and
• Briefly discuss what is needed and what is emerging in the technology field of oilfield polymer-gel treatments that are to be applied for water-shutoff purposes.

As a somewhat separate subject, the attractive performance of polymer-gel treatments that are applied for several conformance-improvement purposes during CO2 flooding operations will also be briefly discussed. Polymer-gel water-shutoff and CO2-conformance-improvement treatments hold significant potential for successful and profitable application in the Permian Basin.