Home > Term: wettability change
wettability change
A type of damage in which the formation wettability is modified, generating a change in relative permeability that eventually affects well productivity.
Surfactants or other additives in drilling fluids, especially oil-base mud, or other injected fluids can change formation wettability. A naturally water-wet formation could be changed into an oil-wet formation with consequent production impairment caused by reduction of oil relative permeability.
Wettability change is normally treated with mutual solvents to remove the rock-oil coating (asphaltene or paraffin precipitation), followed by a strong water-wet surfactant to reduce the tendency of further hydrocarbon precipitation.
- Part of Speech: noun
- Industry/Domain: Oil & gas
- Category: Oilfield
- Company: Schlumberger
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Creator
- BSchmidt
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