Abstract
The "Unified test protocol for laboratory formation damage assessments" consists of functional procedures that attempt to standardise formation damage service projects. Setting functional requirements was preferred above detailed instructions with respect to laboratory work processes and the handling of laboratory equipment.
In order to assess the formation damage potential of a fluid for drilling or well operations, three sections of the protocol need to be accomplished. These are respectively: "Information", "Simulation" and "Analysis".
This paper presents the three sections of the unified protocol and discusses the effect of the functional approach. Special emphasis is put on a distinction between well fluids that experience dynamic and static filtration regimes, as these require different ways of simulating fluid applications to the rock sample. To provide engineering parameters relevant at field scale and to identify the full range of potential formation damage mechanisms that may affect the reservoir, analyses on "centimeter", "millimeter" and "micrometer" scale are suggested.
Minimum requirements to upscale formation damage measurements to field scale are presented. We also present an option for full scope "diagnostic" formation damage assessments.
Applications of numerical models that have been suggested in earlier research yield "return permeability", "filtrate invasion depth", "lab skin", "efficiency of flow" and "loss of revenue" as parameters to benchmark the formation damage of well fluids.
