Tendeka has developed a new polymer treatment to increase recovery from shale reservoirs by 250%.
The firm invested a six-figure sum on its ShaleModifier technology, which is expected to return several million pounds in revenue over the next two years.
Resistance to flow in unconventional formations is created when droplets of brine form hydrogen bonded networks with the surface of the silicate formation rock creating additional capillary pressure.
If the resistance is large enough, it can restrict hydrocarbon flow rates out of the fractured rock formation.
The polymers in ShaleModifier bond to the rock surface to enhance oil flowback and flowrates.
They readily penetrate a pore network size as low as 100 nanometres (nm) with pressure differentials as low as 225 psi.
ShaleModifier can be pumped as part of the initial completion ahead of the hydraulic fracture or as a workover squeezed into the formation.
Suzanne Stewart, Tendeka’s VP North & South America, said: “With the need to tighten up expenditures, there continues to be an appetite for technology that can exponentially increase low recovery factors at economical rates.
“Unlike nano surfactants and other relative permeability modifying chemistries, the ShaleModifier firmly attaches itself to the exposed rock forming a covalent bond with the surface, thereby changing the surface energies and enabling increased and prolonged oil flow recovery.”
