Solids-free completion brine is the ideal fluid to complete wells employing sophisticated downhole tools with limited metal-to-metal clearances, as well as those requiring sand control operations. Unfortunately, clear brines have no inherent control of fluid loss, leading to poor completion performance, increased formation damage and well control issues, all of which contribute to lost production time. More specifically, fluid engineers have reported greater formation damage due to increased brine-formation interaction while reporting losses as high as 100 barrels per hour. Critical evaluation of these factors coupled with the complexity and cost of today’s projects, reinforces the need for chemical systems that immediately and effectively control fluid loss with minimal formation invasion. Cross-linked pills prepared at the rig site gained industry-wide acceptance by reducing fluid loss to just a few barrels per hour. However, deficiencies of rig-prepared pills occur, such as loss of incompletely cross-linked material into the formation, pre-mature cross-linking that inhibits delivery, significant time needed to make a quality pill, and associated HSE issues that limit the manufacturing of pills at the rig. As a result, researches developed second-generation solids- free FLC pills, which feature pre-cross-linked polymer. This second-generation system provides new dimensions in pill technology that further improve the efficiency and consistency of traditional rig-prepared FLC pills. This paper presents methodology for using this new class of pre-cross-linked solids-free FLC pills as well as data defining their properties and characteristics including significant reduction in rigsite HSE issues and superior quality control conducted at the manufacturing plant. This paper also presents field case histories demonstrating the use and effectiveness of optimized, fully pre-cross-linked FLC pills ready for immediate use at the rig.
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