Skin is the measure of near-wellbore damage, and it is usually the cheapest production to recover. A well with a skin of ten may be producing less than half of what it could. Removing that damage costs a fraction of a workover and nothing like the cost of a new well, which is why stimulation is a standard part of production engineering practice.

The difficulty is diagnosis. High skin can come from perforation damage, drilling fluid invasion, clay problems, scale, organic deposits, emulsions or a partially penetrating completion, and the pressure data alone often does not distinguish them. Treating scale with mud acid, or fines migration with a solvent, achieves nothing. The history of the well, the water chemistry, the production behaviour and the completion details all contribute to the diagnosis.

Placement is the other half of the problem. Acid follows the path of least resistance, which means it enters the zones that are already producing well and leaves the damaged intervals untouched. Diversion, whether chemical, mechanical or through coiled tubing placement, is often what determines whether a treatment works. This course gives equal weight to diagnosis, chemistry and placement.

By the end of this training, participants will be able to:

• Identify the main formation damage mechanisms and where each originates.
• Diagnose the cause of damage from well test, production and completion data.
• Calculate skin and estimate the production gain available from its removal.
• Predict scale formation from water chemistry and operating conditions.
• Select scale removal and inhibition methods.
• Design matrix acid treatments for sandstone and carbonate formations.
• Select treatment additives for corrosion, iron control, sludging and clay stabilisation.
• Select and apply diversion and placement methods.
• Plan treatment execution, including pumping, safety and environmental handling.
• Evaluate treatment results and diagnose failures.

Organisations sending participants to this training will:

• Recover production lost to near-wellbore damage.
• Reduce money spent on treatments aimed at the wrong damage mechanism.
• Improve scale management and reduce scale-related deferment.
• Improve treatment placement and success rates.
• Build a consistent process for stimulation candidate diagnosis and evaluation.

Participants will:

• Understand how formations become damaged and how to tell which mechanism is at work.
• Be able to calculate skin and the production available from removing it.
• Be able to design matrix acid and scale removal treatments.
• Understand diversion and placement techniques.
• Be able to evaluate whether a treatment worked and why.

• Production engineers
• Well intervention and workover engineers
• Completion engineers
• Production chemists and chemical treatment engineers
• Well services and stimulation engineers
• Operations engineers in mature fields

Upon successful completion of this training course, delegates will be awarded an official Certificate of Completion issued by the Petroleum Engineers Association (PEA), an ISO 9001:2015 certified training organization. The certificate carries 10 Credits and formally records the total learning hours completed.

Each certificate is signed by the Course Facilitator and the CEO of the Petroleum Engineers Association, and serves as verifiable proof of professional training that delegates can present to employers and professional bodies worldwide.