Abstract To improve the efficiency of coal seam water injection, a viscoelastic surfactant (VES) fracturing fluid that is widely used for the coal-bed methane mining was studied for the coal mine water injection. The composition and gel breaking strategy of the VES fracturing fluid with cationic viscoelastic surfactant as the major component were optimized and evaluated upon viscosity, shear stability, cleanness of gel breaking and wettability to achieve the non-backflow fracturing-strong wetting effect for coal seam water injection. The optimal hydraulic fracturing fluid exhibits high viscosities up to 300 mPa·s and good shear stability for at least 2 h, which meets the industry standards for practical applications. Lubricant, a mixture of hydrocarbons including alkanes, cycloalkanes, aromatics, etc., was found to be an excellent gel breaker, which left