Fracturing treatment with

Osteoporosis affects some 75 million people in Europe, Japan and the USA combined. The condition is characterized by progressive thinning of the bones, leading to bone fragility and increased risk of fracture. Treatment with Forsteo increases bone mineral density and generally entails daily s.c. injection for several months at dosage levels of 20 pg active/dose. 

High-rate add fracturing treatments with gel diverter stages have also been used successfully by Dees and colleagues. An add frac procedure used in the past with success in the Austin chalk, with application elsewhere as well, is as follows ... 

Hydroxypropylguar gum gel can be crosslinked with borates [1227], ti-tanates, or zirconates. Borate-crosslinked fluids and linear hydroxyethyl-cellulose gels are the most commonly used fluids for high-permeability fracture treatments. This is for use for hydraulic fracturing fluid under high-temperature and high-shear stress. 

Treatments with Biocides Previously Fractured Formations... 

These properties were used to synthesize an organic cation (Table 17-10) with a higher efficiency as a clay stabilizer than the typical salts used in the oil industry to this point. These additives provide additional benefits when used in conjunction with acidizing and fracturing treatments. A much lower salt concentration can be used to obtain the same clay-stabilizing effectiveness [830, 833]. The liquid product has been proven to be much easier to handle and transport. It is environmentally compatible and biodegradable in its diluted form. 

A solid, encapsulated scale inhibitor (calcium-magnesium polyphosphate) has been developed and extensively tested for use in fracturing treatments [1451-1453]. The inhibitor is compatible with borate- and zirconium-crosslinked fracturing fluids and foamed fluids because of coating. The coating... 

Adhesive-Coated Material. The addition of an adhesive-coated material [335] to proppants decreases the flowback of the particulates. Such adhesive-coated materials can be inorganic or organic fibers, flakes, and the like. The adhesive-coated material interacts mechanically with the proppant particles to prevent the flowback of particulates to the wellbore. The consolidation of a proppant also may occur via a polyurethane coating, which will slowly polymerize after the fracturing treatment because of a polyaddition process [1856]. 

The majority of hydraulic fracturing treatments are performed using water-based fluids foams (with nitrogen or carbon dioxide as the gas phase) have been used extensively in recent years to reduce formation damage. Oil-external emulsions have also been used for... 

Zirconyl chloride can be used to stabilize swelling clays in both acidic environments and in the presence of 600 F steam (160). No well shut-in time is required for polymerization to occur so zirconyl chloride may be used in conjunction with hydraulic fracturing treatments (161). 

Several articles with informative bibliographies covering formation protection additives have appeared recently(97,101,102). The exact rock formation sample in question, the ionic strength of the treatment fluid, the preventive additives that are present, the pH of the fluid, and the test procedure employed all have significant effects on the test results. However, with careful experimentation using representative materials a preventive additive package can be administered as part of a water-based fracture treatment to allow effective stimulation of most hydrocarbon reservoirs. Because of this, water-based fracturing fluids are used in approximately 90% of all fracture treatments performed today. 

Treatment of postmenopausal women with osteoporosis with raloxifene (60mg/day or 120mg/day for 36 months) was found to significantly increase bone mineral density in the spine and femoral neck and decrease the risk of vertebral fracture compared to the placebo treatment.Treatment with raloxifene increased the risk of venous thromboembolism compared to the placebo group and was also associated with a lower risk of breast cancer and did not cause breast pain or vaginal bleeding. 

A variety of diseases can affect bone and its structure. Paget s disease, for example, is a disorder arising from abnormal osteoclasts, characterized by exeessive bone resorption followed by replacement of the normal mineralized bone with structurally weak, poorly mineralized tissue. However, the most important bone disease is osteoporosis. This is a skeletal bone disease characterized hy microarchitectural deterioration of bony tissue and loss of bone mass, yielding increased susceptibility to bone fracture and bone fragility. In the United States, osteoporosis results in 1.5 million hone fractures annually, with 250,000 of these being hip fractures that sometimes ultimately culminate in patient death. There is a variety of therapies for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis. 

Procedure. The site was developed on a five-spot pattern about 25 ft square, as shown in Figure 2. The wells were rotary drilled with water and completed with 50 ft of 7-in. casing and cemented to the surface. A 6%-in. hole was drilled below the casing to a total depth of 100 ft in the oil shale. Two additional wells were drilled off pattern as observation wells. A Fischer assay determined the oil yield of the section as 19.0-26.5 gal/ton. Two sand-propped hydraulic fracture treatments were applied for emplacing NG1 in the formation. 

Roy-Camille R, Mazel C, Husson JL, Saillant G. Symptomatic spinal epidural hpomatosis induced by a long-term steroid treatment. Review of the literature and report of two additional cases. Spine 1991 16(12) 1365-71. Andress HJ, Schurmann M, Heuck A, Schmand J, Lob G. A rare case of osteoporotic spine fracture associated with epidural lipomatosis causing paraplegia following longterm cortisone therapy. Arch Orthop Trauma Surg 2000 120(7-8) 484-6. 

Frediani B, Falsetti P, Baldi F, Acciai C, Filippou G, Marcolongo R. Effects of 4-year treatment with once-weekly clodronate on prevention of corticosteroid-induced bone loss and fractures in patients with arthritis evaluation with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and quantitative ultrasound. Bone 2003 33 575-81. 

Estimates of the important outcome of bone fracture have shown a small increased risk with inhaled glucocorticoids, but this may well be a feature of the disease rather than the therapy, because comparisons with treatment with bronchodilator drugs show no difference between risk factors in patients taking glucocorticoids or bronchodilators. 

With increasing concern over the long-term safety of hormone replacement therapy, the benefit to harm balance has to be continually reassessed, and conclusions as to its prophylactic or therapeutic value need to be adjusted as experience accumulates. Not all the promises held out for the benefits of this therapy have been confirmed. For example, while estrogens prevent peripheral bone loss they do not prevent vertebral fractures (6) and in a 2-year placebo-controlled, crossover study in 34 healthy postmenopausal women, treatment with transder-mal estrogen alone (Menorest 50 micrograms/day) did not improve lipid profiles or any indices of arterial function (7). 

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