TABLE OF CONTENTS The history of acidizing is remarkable, and the story from the 1890s through the 1960s is detailed beautifully in the first chapter of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) monograph Acidizing Fundamentals, by Williams, Gidley, and Schechter. [1] Unfortunately, their monograph is difficult to come by. Therefore, their contribution to the literature is summarized here, with additional commentary.
Acidizing predates hydraulic fracturing and all other well stimulation techniques. Hydraulic fracturing was not discovered until the 1940s and was not commercialized until later. Acidizing is certainly also the oldest stimulation technique still in modern use. The earliest acid treatments of oil wells occurred as far back as 1895. [2] The Standard Oil Company used concentrated hydrochloric acid (HCl) to stimulate oil wells producing from carbonate formations in Lima, Ohio, at their Solar Refinery.
Herman Frasch, the chief chemist of the Solar Refinery at that time, is credited with the invention of the acidizing technique. [3] Frasch was issued the first patent on acidizing on March 17, 1896. [4] This was the first great milestone in the history of acidizing. The brief Frasch patent was the first of many acidizing patents. In the patent, Frasch proposed commercial muriatic acid (30% 40% by weight of HCl, a highly water-soluble gaseous acid).
A similar patent was granted to John Van Dyke, general manager of the Solar Refinery at that...
