A New Multiple Chelating Acid System with Low Damage and Weak Dissolution

Matrix acidizing is an essential strategy to maintain or increase productivity or injectivity of hydro-carbon wells. However, for loose sandstone reservoirs, the rock skeleton structure is easily de-stroyed by acidizing with conventional acid systems, which results in sand production. Also, the precipitation of metal fluorides, fluorosilicates, and so forth that may occur during acidizing will cause secondary damage to reservoirs. Therefore, we propose a new multiple chelating acid system (NMCAS) with low damage and weak dissolution. The system consists of multiple weak acids, organic phosphonic chelators, anionic polycarboxylic chelating dispersants, fluorides, and other auxiliary additives. Its performance was measured through laboratory tests. First, the dissolution retardation effect and dissolution capacity of NMCAS were analyzed by long-term dissolution tests. Then, the changes of particle size and mineral composition of the rock powder before and after dissolution of NMCAS and a regular mud acid system were comparatively analyzed by a sieving analysis method and x-ray diffraction measurement. Third, the chelating abilities of the system on metal ions were analyzed by a titration method. Moreover, the improvement of seepage capacity was analyzed by a core acidification flowing experiment and scanning electron microscopy. Finally, the dissolution mechanism of the system was further analyzed by energy dispersive spectroscopy. Research results indicate that NMCAS has a good retardation effect and a moderate dissolution ability. After dissolution of rock powder with the proposed acid system, the changes in particle size were less than those of the conventional mud acid system. Also, it dissolved merely a small portion of the clay minerals, but increased the dissolution of quartz, feldspar, and other matrices. NMCAS can prevent secondary precipitation of metal ions during the acidizing process because of its strong chelating ability for calcium ions, magnesium ions, and iron ions. The permeability of sample cores was moderately increased, and they formed obvious dissolution channels; however, the rock skele-ton structure was not destroyed after acidizing with NMCAS. This is because the system reduced the dissolution of clay minerals with larger specific surfaces because of the adsorption effect (a relatively lower reduction in the content of the Al element) while enhancing that of such matrices as quartz and feldspar (relatively larger changes in the content of the Si element). NMCAS can dis-solve the cement appropriately while enhancing the dissolution of the matrices, which protects the rock skeleton structure of loose sandstone reservoirs. The proposed acid solution would be of value for removing formation plugging and increasing the production of loose sandstone reservoirs.