ABSTRACT

Mainly spurred by the Advanced Energy Consortium organized by the University of Texas at Austin, active research efforts have been made on the use of nanoparticles to obtain more accurate information on reservoir rock and fluid in-situ properties and on the dynamics of resident and injected fluids. In one category of “intelligent tracers,” the surface coating on the nanoparticle is designed to change its nature in a specific manner, when the particles contact a certain target fluid component or a mineral component in the reservoir, or some other reservoir properties. Creation of multiple hydraulic fractures along a horizontal well is a widely and actively practiced technique to stimulate the production of oil and/or gas from shale and other low-permeability reservoirs. When the particles are produced, they can be “interrogated” to retrieve the data; and deployment of the nanoparticle-based sensing device downhole, either in the wellbore or at the near-wellbore zone of the reservoir formation.