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University of Wyoming

UW Technologies Available for Licensing


Technology Disclosures: 05-028, 04-050 - Increasing the Production of Hydrocarbons By Reducing or Eliminating Water Block

 

Water interference of the hydrocarbon stream in an oil or gas well effectively chokes off production and renders the well useless. This situation is commonly known as “water block”. Water block is caused when a well is in an area with high water saturation; this increases the likelihood that water will make its way into the well head area and interfere with oil and gas production. The effect of water block strangulation is drastic and includes lost time and profit as well as potentially abandoned well sites having on-going environmental consequences. It is no doubt that if drilling operators can solve this problem, they will increase yields and profits as they avoid forfeiting time, energy and money to the effects of water block.

Researchers at the University of Wyoming’s Department of Petroleum and Chemical Engineering have developed a patent pending process to mitigate water block and its effects. UW’s method has been shown to reduce and even eliminate the problem (see enclosed graph). In our method, a select mixture of in-expensive, readily available compounds are simply injected into the bore region of the water-blocked well. This mixture decreases water wettability and increases hydrocarbon wettability in the bore region of well head. Water’s capillary action and subsequent saturation is decreased and the well bore is effectively “cleaned”. The hydrocarbon stream re-establishes itself and the well is brought back into production.

The most recent results carried out in a western US field show the drastic increase of hydrocarbon production after treatment – the thirty day cumulative production for the well was approximately four-fold greater after treatment than before treatment. This technology is currently protected by a PCT patent application.For more information, please see this recent Power Point presentation.

If your company would like to learn more about this technology and how your company or utility may apply it in commercial situations, please contact Davona Douglass, director of technology transfer at the University of Wyoming. We would be pleased to enter a confidentiality agreement and share further details.