Formation damage by fines migration

One of the widely spread causes of reservoir formation damage is fines migration. Migration of natural reservoir fines occurs during commingled production of oil or gas with low-salinity water, during high-rate production or injection, with low-salinity waterflooding and its combinations with enhancd oil recovery (EOR). At least 10% of $100 billion annual worldwide expenditure on prevention, mitigation, and removal of formation damage is attributed to fines migration. The current chapter derives basic fundamental equations for fines detachment, migration, and size exclusion in single-phase and two-phase environments. The mathematical model for fines detachment derived in this chapter significantly differs from the classical approach: the maximum attached concentration as a function of velocity, salinity, and pH captures fines lifting due to change of the abovementioned variables. Exact analytical solutions are obtained for 1D linear flows with fines migration during rate increase and salinity decrease. Laboratory coreflood data are matched by the analytical models, providing the tuned parameter values. The laboratory-based parameters are used for field-scale predictions of behavior of injection and production wells during fines migration