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The applications and benefits of the Viper Drill™ EOR system are extensive and our technology has the potential to impact many problems facing oil and gas producers in a wide variety of rocks, lithographies and well situations.
What is the Core Problem?
The O&G industry has long-standing solutions for how to establish communication with the payzone-- perforating and fracking.
But there are problems with both of these solutions. In situ, perf’s typically only reach out a foot or two. That’s not much contact
with the reservoir– and leaves little margin of error if/when damage mechanisms set in. Meanwhile, fracks, which can reach X00’s
or even X,000s of feet, suffer from their own set of shortcoming– some economic, some legal, and some technical.
The core problem our technology solves is the missing link between 0 and 50 to 100 feet from the wellbore. This ‘well-vicinity’ gap is solved by Viper Drill’s Flow-Highways™– and solving this critical problem yields several key benefits.
There are 3 primary benefits to our radial drilling service—each of which offers the opportunity for improved hydrocarbon recovery from your wells. These are:
While the above sections highlights the Key Benefits of Viper Drill's™ radial drainage tunnels, the video (at right) provides an overview of popular well applications and adjunctive treatments that can be ‘piggy-backed’ onto the Flow-Highways™.
These include:
By-Passing Emulsions / Clay Swelling: Adverse reaction of fluids and formation is a common damaging mechanism. We can drill thru swollen clays and emulsions to re-establish flow.
Fracture Networks: If there is a known preferential fracture directions, the radials can be oriented using a gyro so as to intersect those fracture networks
HCL Stimulation of Carbonates: HCL can be pumped out Flow-Highways™ to dramatically increase production in carbonate zones. And because we do mechanically drill the formation, we can work in low-purity carbonate zones that are not easily dissolved by even 20 or 30% HCL.
Mitigating Water Coning: Flow-Highways™ can improve this pervasive problem by changing the near wellbore pressure gradient. Basically, by changing the pressure drop around the wellbore, we help encourage the zone to prefer horizontal rather than vertical flow. In very problematic wells, our patent-pending Kill & Drill™ approach can be used. This more aggressive treatments pumps gels downhole to shut-off water production… we then drill through this ‘no-flow plug’ to re-establish in-flow.
SWD & Injection Wells: Whether you’re pulling product out or pumping it down, the formations acts like a filter that becomes plugged with time. Flow-Highways™ can drill through the plugged zone to allow reduce injection pressures / increase injection volumes.
Improved Sweep / Reduced Channeling: If channeling is a problem, Viper Drill™ radials can be used to alter the flow regime so that injection fluids travel away from the high perm streaks and instead sweep out new portions of the reservoir. And, these Flow-Highways™ can be used on both injectors and producers.
Fracking Supplement or Alternative: In some applications the Viper Drill™ procedure can be used in lieu of fracking, while in others it can be used in conjunction with fracks. Obviously, in places where fracking is banned or uneconomical, the viable stimulation alternatives are few. Flow-Highways™ can fill this gap. But Flow-Highways™ can also be used to produce a better, more enduring frack by eliminating premature bridging/screen-outs of proppants and, more importantly, by establishing robust, enduring high conductivity flow tunnels in the wellbore vicinity. Unlike fracks that tend to ‘heal’ with time—partly because material is being crammed where it does not want to be and partly because of their erratic path-- Flow-Highways™ are straight (laminar flow) and actually remove material.