In hydraulically stimulated wells it is difficult, if not impossible, to precisely determine which fracture zones beyond the borehole wall are contributing to the production of the produced fluids. Improved exploitation of the natural resources in the wells requires greater understanding of which fractures are actively contributing to flow, as well as the rates of flow in these fractures. Accurate information concerning these parameters would allow the operator to monitor the engineered reservoir system and make informed decisions about increasing well efficiency over an extended period of time. It is therefore of high commercial interest to be able to determine quickly and accurately the regions of the rock mass that are not contributing to overall fluid flow. Our approach to address this critical problem is to develop unique, traceable “taggants” based on three general concepts: (i) rare-earth doped nanoparticles based on monocationic oxide matrices, (ii) bulk rare earth salts, and (iii) soluble coordination complexes. Each of these species can be independently loaded into a porous proppant and delivered underground. Once released, the identification of these nanoparticles or metal complexes above-ground can be realized through a combination of analytical tools (e.g., inductively-coupled plasma, resonance Raman spectroscopy) that allows both qualitative and quantitative information about the properties of the well flow to be determined.

New taggants for monitoring underground fluid flows

251st National Meeting (2016)

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