A New Fracturing Fluid For The Canyon Sand

One of the primary concerns in completion practices for the Canyon Sand in Sterling, Schleicher, Sutton, and Crockett counties has been to balance possible formation damage with completion costs. The low productivity, and until very recently, the low gas prices for this area has made the use of "exotic" fracturing treatments very difficult to justify. The fluids were normally a gelled water or gelled weak acid system, often used with CO2. In those instances where the treatments are performed via tubing, low injection rates often contributed to screenouts. The recent advent of cross linked water based fluids and more effective clay stabilizers has reduced both the screenout problems and formation damage. Within the last 8-12 months, a complexed weak acid system has been developed which has demonstrated a combination of most of the advantages of the other systems with very few disadvantages. The ability to transport sand out to the drainage boundary is the ideal stimulation practice for almost any "tight" sand. This idealized treatment, though, is often not economically justifiable due to the inefficient nature of the fracture fluid, especially the earlier fluids used in this area. In this paper, we will investigate the theoretical and practical aspects of pumping a complexed weak acid system. This system possesses a large number of the desired characteristics for use in the Canyon Sand -- high viscosity, low friction loss, low pH compatibility with C02, compatibility with clay stabilizers and fluorocarbon surfactants, low fluid loss, and excellent sand transport properties.