{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,30]],"date-time":"2026-07-30T17:52:13Z","timestamp":1785433933742,"version":"3.56.0"},"reference-count":34,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,10]],"date-time":"2026-06-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1781049600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["52274052"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["52274052"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["52274052"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["52274052"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01h0zpd94","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Gels"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Borate-crosslinked hydroxypropyl guar (HPG) gels are widely used as water-based fracturing fluids in oilfield stimulation. During hydraulic fracturing, their effectiveness depends on the rapid formation of a low-permeability filter cake on fracture walls, which helps reduce fluid invasion, maintain fracture pressure, and support fracture propagation. In high- and ultra-high-permeability reservoirs, however, rapid matrix invasion may occur faster than effective filter-cake formation, causing severe pre-cake spurt loss or even uncontrolled leakoff. Conventional filter-paper tests tend to emphasize stabilized wall-building behavior and may therefore fail to represent the early-time spurt loss in porous reservoir media. In this study, the leakoff behavior of borate-crosslinked HPG fracturing fluids was investigated using a modified static fluid-loss apparatus. Experiments were conducted at differential pressures of 0.5\u20136.0 MPa through filter paper and artificial sandstone disks with permeabilities from 0.120 to more than 4.0 \u03bcm2. The filter-paper tests showed typical wall-building behavior, with limited spurt loss and stable late-time leakoff. In contrast, the sandstone-disk tests revealed a transition from cake-controlled leakoff to early-time spurt-loss-dominated leakoff as permeability and differential pressure increased. When permeability exceeded approximately 1.55\u20132.42 \u03bcm2, spurt loss (Vsp) became the main contributor to total leakoff, whereas the late-time wall-building coefficient (Cw) was much less sensitive to permeability. This indicates that permeability mainly controls the pre-cake invasion stage rather than the stabilized leakoff stage. Based on these results, an empirical spurt-loss model considering permeability and pressure differential was developed, and spurt-loss zoning maps were constructed for engineering evaluation. Limited ultra-high-permeability tests further showed that quartz particles promoted early bridging and reduced leakoff under moderate pressure differentials, but the particle-assisted barrier lost effectiveness under higher pressure differentials. These findings demonstrate that filter-paper-based criteria are insufficient for evaluating HPG gel performance in extreme-permeability formations and that a spurt-loss-based framework is needed for fluid-loss-control design and fracturing-fluid selection in high-permeability reservoirs.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/gels12060519","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,11]],"date-time":"2026-06-11T02:59:31Z","timestamp":1781146771000},"page":"519","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Evidence for Early-Time Spurt-Loss Dominance in Borate-Crosslinked HPG Gel Leakoff for High-Permeability Sandstone"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"12","author":[{"given":"Shuqian","family":"Li","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Hainan Institute, China University of Petroleum (Beijing), Sanya 572000, China"},{"name":"College of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Wei","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hainan Institute, China University of Petroleum (Beijing), Sanya 572000, China"},{"name":"College of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China"},{"name":"College of Energy Innovation, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Beiyu","family":"Han","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hainan Institute, China University of Petroleum (Beijing), Sanya 572000, China"},{"name":"College of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jingen","family":"Deng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hainan Institute, China University of Petroleum (Beijing), Sanya 572000, China"},{"name":"College of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Liqun","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hainan Institute, China University of Petroleum (Beijing), Sanya 572000, China"},{"name":"College of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kaikai","family":"Xu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hainan Institute, China University of Petroleum (Beijing), Sanya 572000, China"},{"name":"College of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Liangliang","family":"Zhao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hainan Institute, China University of Petroleum (Beijing), Sanya 572000, China"},{"name":"College of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,10]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"809","article-title":"Fluid Leakoff Determines Hydraulic Fracture Dimensions: Approximate Solution for Non-Newtonian Fracturing Fluid","volume":"49","author":"Mikhailov","year":"2011","journal-title":"Int. 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