TREATMENT OF HYDROCARBON, ORGANIC RESIDUE AND PRODUCTION CHEMICAL DAMAGE MECHANISMS THROUGH THE APPLICATION OF CARBON DIOXIDE IN NATURAL GAS STORAGE WELLS

Two gas storage fields were studied for this project. Overisel field, operated by Consumer's Energy, is located near the town of Holland, Michigan. Huntsman Storage Unit, operated by Kinder Morgan, is located in Cheyenne County, Nebraska near the town of Sidney. Wells in both fields experienced declining performance over several years of their annual injection/production cycle. In both fields, the presence of hydrocarbons, organic materials or production chemicals was suspected as the cause of progressive formation damage leading to the performance decline. Core specimens and several material samples were collected from these two natural gas storage reservoirs. Laboratory studies were performed to characterize the samples that were believed to be representative of a reservoir damage mechanism previously identified as arising from the presence of hydrocarbons, organic residues or production chemicals. A series of laboratory experiments were performed to identify the sample materials, use these materials to damage the flow capacity of the core specimens and then attempt to remove or reduce the induced damage using either carbon dioxide or a mixture of carbon dioxide and other chemicals. Results of the experiments showed that pure carbon dioxide was effective in restoring flow capacity to the core specimens in several different settings. However, in settings involving asphaltines as the damage mechanism, both pure carbon dioxide and mixtures of carbon dioxide and other chemicals provided little effectiveness in damage removal.