ABSTRACT of Presentation

For many years the Upstream Oil Industry has relied on viscosity as the principal design parameter with respect to rheology and particle suspension in hydraulic fracturing. Unfortunately, viscosity does not tell the entire story.  More and more the technical community is looking at elasticity in addition to viscosity; ergo, the term viscoelasticity was coined.

Over time it has become evident that elasticity is the more relevant variable when particulate suspension is the focus.   Its impact is much more important than many operations people realize, as it affects surface and downhole frac operations and, more importantly, the level of crude production.

Binder Science now has five years of laboratory and field experience using MM viscoelastic polymer fluids across the spectrum ranging from slickwater FR’s to crosslinked guar gels.  The improvement in performance has been outstanding.  Pressure spikes and screenouts are almost non-existent.  Coarse sand distributions like 20x40 mesh are being run at high loadings without using crosslinked guar.  Production from these wells has improved dramatically over conventional completed offset wells.  Field experience includes the Marcellus, Utica, Bakken, Permian, Eagle Ford and others shales in the US and overseas.