Practical Application of the Damage Determination in a Well

Abstract

The damage effect in a well, as the natural or induced alteration of the petrophysical properties of the rock formation, related with the flow of fluids is discussed. The damage effect is analyzed, from the decrease in the capabilities of production and/or injection of wells. In the past, the damage effect, ordinarily only was determined through the analysis of transient pressure tests. A methodology, recently introduced is presented here, in order to determine the damage effect using data of output tests. In the practice this methodology uses the geothermal inflow type-curve affected with damage. The determination of the damage value in a well is applicable for establishing its conditions to date of the production test is carried out. At the present the inflow type curve was developed to wells producing flow mixture with H2O-CO2-NaCl. We propose the methodology to determine the damage in a well and examples of its application using a data set of a well are shown. We used data of three output tests carried out in a geothermal well at different stages of its operative life and the results of the corresponding analysis are shown. The obtained results indicate that the numerical value of the damage effect in the well increases as function of its exploitation time. We discuss the practical application of the knowledge of the damage effect in a well in order to apply operations of remediation in it.