Summary

Foamed fluids are becoming very popular for use in stimulation treatments. This can
be attributed to their excellent properties such as low leakoff rate, excellent
proppant transport, longer fractures with less fluid, minimum formation damage,
and superior posttreatment cleanup. Base fluids that can be foamed are oil, water.
and acid.

Foam quality is very critical to many of the properties of the resultant foam fluid.
This quality changes with temperature and pressure. Included in this paper is a new
approach to an easier determination of foam quality under bottomhole treating
conditions so that necessary ratio adjustment can be made at the wellhead to
obtain the desired quality at the formation.

History

The earliest foam fracturing treatment was performed in Jan. 1968. 1 This treatment
placed approximately 2041 kg (4,500 lbm) of 12-/20-mesh glass bead proppant with
an approximately 83 to 85%-quality foam to stimulate the Brown shale formation in
Lincoln County, WV. Virtually no other use of foam stimulation fluids was reported
until the latter half of 1973. At this time, there was a development, undercurrent of
foam stimulation use that spread across the country and into Canadian operations.
Papers presented by Blauer, Mitchell, and Kohlhaas in April 1974 and by Blauer and
Kohlhaas in October 1974 served further to popularize this budding stimulation
technique.

Most foam fracturing treatments performed during 1973-76 were small volume,
generally less than 189 m3 (50,000 gal), and carried some form of propping agent.
Several other papers describing mechanical and design procedures for foam
fracturing treatments appeared in 1975, 1976, and early 1977.

Surprisingly, the site of the first massive foam stimulation treatment was the same
general location as the first experimental treatment. In June 1976, a 946-m 3
(250,000-gal) foam fracturing treatment, which placed 135 715 kg, (299,200 Ibm)
total sand. was performed in Lincoln County, WV. A second treatment comprising
1060 m3 (280,000 gal) foam and 140 432 kg (309,600 Ibm) total sand was

performed in Nov. 1976, in the same West Virginia county. Both treatments were
conducted as part of a joint Columbia Gas System Service Corp./ERDA
demonstration of massive hydraulic fracturing in the Devonian shale.

During, 1977-78, papers describing, variations in the established pattern in foam

fracturing began to appear. Among these variations was extension of foam to
fracture-acidizing applications. As a technique to reduce further the formation
exposure to a potentially damaging aqueous fluid, a foamed methanol/water
solution also was introduced at this time.

Although there was evidence that the number of foam stimulation treatments was
increasing, papers presented during 1979-80 gave an impression that this service
was entering a period of consolidation or maturity. Counteracting this initial
impression were several massive hydraulic fracturing services performed in cast
Texas during the latter half of 1980. Treatments with volumes ranging, up to 2233
m3 (590,000 gal) of 65%-quality foam were performed. This largest job to date
placed 503 487 kg (1,110,000 total lbm) of sand.

Foam Quality

Foam is a gas/liquid dispersion, with gas as the internal phase and liquid as the
external phase. Foam quality is the ratio of gas volume to foam volume (volumetric
gas content) at a given pressure and temperature.