A two-year research project funded by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) has identified new materials for use in oil field production technology. The program, funded through a subcontract to BDM Oklahoma, identified these new materials found to be effective alternates to partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamides, copolymers, and xanthan gum polymers as water shutoff agents in fractures and in matrix flow configurations. In the past, the oil industry has found that poor injectivity and questionable stability of starch products prevented their use in profile control applications. However, in recent years, the demands of the oil and gas drilling industry have led to the development of new modified starches for drilling, drill-in, and completion fluids. The properties of the new products lend themselves to applications in improved recovery. Scientists from Prairie View A&M University and Texas A&M University have found that chemically modified starches have properties suitable for improved recovery technology. The materials, derived from inexpensive agricultural products, do not hydrolyze in harsh saline environments, are made more resistant to biodegradation, and because of their wide spectrum of molecular weight distributions can be tailored to specific lithologies. The development of new materials with superior functionality and reliability has been an important technological advance that can significantly increase oil and gas reserves, and reduce production costs. Among the various applications where modified starches were tested, two areas were identified with significant promise for improvement in technology, specifically (1) low temperature environmentally approved gel packages and (2) high temperature delayed gel packages. Modified starches offer an alternative to currently used polyacrylamide, particularly for lower temperature systems, because of faster reaction times and adequate retention properties in porous media and in fractured core systems. Such systems compare favorably to commercially available systems used in soil consolidation and soil barrier treatments and are environmentally safe as well. Likewise, the program has identified starch materials that offer advantages in high temperature delayed gel applications. Delayed gel times are essential in high temperature applications because of the difficulty in placing gelant materials in formations where temperature accelerates reaction rates and gel times. Currently, the standard practice is to use retarding agents so that systems can be placed in reservoirs. The principal investigators for the research effort are Dr. Jorge Gabitto of Prairie View A&M University and Dr. Maria Barrufet of Texas A&M University. The work was supported in part by grants from Chemstar Inc. and Staley Manufacturing Inc.