PRODUCTION OPERATIONS

SAND CONTROL
 Sand Control – Rock Failure
• Why? – A bit of Mechanics on rock failure
• How? – Some choices that depend on the
rock
• What is moving?
– Sand grains?
– Fines?

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Young’s Modulus, E • Young’s Modulus is a material’s stiffness or resistance
to being compressed or extended. When the stress overcomes the sand
strength, it will fail.
E = s/e ez sz

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Sources of Downhole Stress

Relatively Constant
 Overburden (weight of the sediments above the pay)
 Horizontal Stress – Poisson’s ratio effects (in an ideal world)
 Salt movement
 Rock movement
 Tectonic movement
 Deviation effects
 Azimuth effects
 Radial stresses
 Axial stresses (in pipe)

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Sources of Downhole Stress

Changes
 Pore pressure
 Frac pressure
 Lubricated fluids
 Acids, soaps, solvents
 Shock loads
 Reversing loads (U-tube forces)
 Explosive loading from perforating
 High drawdown levels

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Pore Pressure

 • Load supporting element

 – Highest at initial production – directly offsets
 overburden and confining stresses.
 – Lowest at depletion – formation must withstand
 more overburden.
 • Effective stress is that part of the overburden
 stress that must be supported by the rock
 matrix.

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 What affects strength/movement
the
most?
• Phase change, particularly
water moving into
the pore spaces.
– Creates drop in relative perm
to oil and gas.
– May weaken the grain-to-grain
cementation in
clay cemented rocks.
– Can liberate particles, silts
and fines.
• Stress increases near
depletion.
• High drag forces at start of
production.
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What is weak, what is strong?

 • Again, conditions dictate the outcome

 • Some ideas:
 – Rocks below about 1000 psi to 2500 psi may need active sand control. Can it support a
 cavity?
 – Rocks with strength up to 5000 psi or more may need carefully treatment to prevent
 sanding or breakdown of rock structure.
 • Sonic travel time – some generalizations from experience:
 – <50 msec is strong formation
 – >50 msec to 90 msec is a transition area – moderately consolidated? – but subject
 to change?
 – >90 msec to <120 msec is a weak formation
 – >120 msec is near unconsolidated formation
 • Porosity
 – <20% usually stronger formation
 – 20 to 30% - gray area
 – >30% - unconsolidated

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What does it all mean to rock strength?

 Rock strength may or may not be constant over its

 life – depends on conditions.
 • Care is needed in weaker rocks when:
 – Water comes in (coning, edge entry, leaks, floods…)
 – Starting-up (and shutting-down)
 – When acidizing or treating with solvents
 – Attaining very high drawdowns
 – At very high underbalance w/ perforating
 – Near the end of the well’s life (increasing depletion causes
 increased overburden).

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Sand Control Methods

 Open Hole and Cavities

 • Cased and Perforated
 • Stand Alone Screen
 • Slotted Liner
 • Expandable Screen
 • Resin Consolidation
 • Cased Hole Gravel Pack
 • Open Hole Gravel Pack
 • High Rate Water Pack
 • Fracturing
 • Tip Screen Out Fracture

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Which completion method?

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What are the advantages and drawbacks of the
completion type for the specific application?

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  For a reservoir when we have knowledge about its properties and in-situ stresses, which
predict sand production is probable; companies go towards methods to limit the impact of
this problem. So under these circumstances here is a question whether to
 prevent this problem
 or to control this.

 There is another basic division of methods to limit impact of sanding problem which involve
two methods,
 one is mechanical and
 other is chemical.
 The mechanical methods are those which are used to control sanding problem by blocking
fines, first larger one fines which make a cake there and in turn block small size fines by
using gravel packs, sand screens and slotted liners.

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 Chemical methods are mostly used to prevent sanding problem which involve
 injection of binding materials like resins which are introduced into the formation to bind the sand
grains.
 We can also avoid sanding problem by handling the well with “tender loving care” which means to
control the shocks in the reservoir which can be produced due to in appropriate drawdown and
production rates, but these both methods reduce production which can affect the economics of
the field. Below is the brief discussion of some of chemical and mechanical methods.

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