Mineral Scale Deposition Caused by Kill Fluid Application

Paper describes problems observed during clean-up & bean-up operations of one of the Western Siberia field wells. The problem consisted of an intensive mineral scale deposition in electrical submersible pump (ESP) impellers. This led to rapid ESP failure with “no flow” code. Main causes and mechanism of mineral scale deposition was determined, scale inhibitor and scale dissolver were selected based on laboratory tests, production chemicals application procedure was developed. It was shown that Zn2+ ions included in specific kill fluids compositioncould have significant impact on scale deposition rate. This shall be taken into account during scale management implementation in case of zinc-containing kill fluid use.