A New Elastoplastic 3D Sand Production Model for Fractured Gas Fields

Reservoirs characterized by high temperature,high-pressure,medium high cementation strength,low porosity,and low permeability,in general,are not affected by sand production issues.Since 2009,however,it is known that cases exists where sand is present and may represent a significant technical problem(e.g.,the the Dina II condensate gas field).In the present study,the main factors affecting sand production in this type of reservoir are considered(mechanical properties,stress fields,production system,completion method and gas flow pattern changes during the production process).On this basis,a new liquid-solid coupled porous elasto-plastic 3D sand production model is introduced and validated through comparison with effective sand production data.The related prediction errors are found to be within 15%,which represents the necessary prerequisite for the utilization of such a model for the elaboration of sand prevention measures.

Chemical treatment for sand production control:A review of materials,methods,and field operations

Sand production from loosely consolidated reservoirs is one of the critical issues in the oil and gas in-dustry all around the world that can cause many problems,such as erosion of surface and well equip-ment,sand accumulation in wells and operation facilities,buckling of casing in cased-hole wells and well productivity reduction.Sand production control methods include restrictive production rate,mechanical methods(slotted liner,wire-wrapped screen,pre-packed screen,frac-pack,gravel pack,high-rate water pack)and chemical consolidation that chemical method is considered for more effectiveness in sand production alleviation due to increasing formation strength in near wellbore region.This review provides an overview on the laboratory and filed operation investigations of chemical remedy for sand production.Some used chemical agents and more common laboratory tests for evaluating the chemical performance in sand consolidation are introduced in this paper.Furthermore,the results of field operations and in-jections of chemicals into the desired formation are also reported.These results show that the chemical sand consolidation is more effective in newly perforated wells which have no sand production experi-ence and have a production history of less than two years.Finally,it was concluded that the main challenges in applying this method are permeability and capillary force reduction around the wellbore and selective injection into the targeted formation layers.

Sand Production Prediction and Safe Differential Pressure Determination in a Deepwater Gas Field

Sand production is a critical issue during the development of offshore oil and gas fields.Certain gas fields(e.g.the AB gas field)have high porosity and high permeability,and with water at the bottom of the reservoir,the risk of sand production greatly increases at high differential pressures.Based on reservoir properties,geological conditions,production requirements,and well logging data,in this study an ultrasonic time difference method,a B index method,and a S index method are used together with a model of rock mass failure(accounting for water influx and pressure depletion)to qualitatively predict sand production.The results show that considered sample gas field has an overall high risk of sand production.The critical differential pressure(CDP)without water influx is in the range of 1.40 to 2.35 MPa,the CDP after water influx is from 0.60 to 1.41MPa.The CDP under pressure depletion is in the range of 1.20 to 1.92 MPa.The differential pressure charts of sand production are plotted,and the safe differential pressure windows with or without water influx are obtained.The model calculation results and the experimental results are consistent with the field production data,which indicates that the implemented prediction method could be taken as a reference for sand production prediction in similar deep water gas fields.

An experimental investigation on the effect of grain size on oil-well sand production

Sand production in oil wells is closely related to the mechanical behavior and petrographical properties of sandstones reservoir. Grain size is one of the main parameters controlling the phenomenon, which is studied in this paper. Large-scale hollow cylindrical synthetic samples with the same rock strength but different grain sizes were tested by an experimental setup in the laboratory. Different external stresses and fluid flow rates were applied to the samples and produced sand was measured continuously. Results show two different trends between sanding stress level and grain size. For the samples with finer grain size （D50〈0.3 mm）, the required confining stress for different sanding levels decreased with an increase in the grain size and for the samples with the coarser grains （D50〉0.3 mm） the required confining stress for different sanding levels dramatically increased with an increase in the grain size. Those two different trends were discussed and explained. The first one was production of individual grains and the second was bigger chunks in the slab form. In samples with large grains, plastic zones around hole were changed to a completely loose zone including interlocked individual grains or cluster of grains. In these samples after breakage of these interlocked zones sand was produced in the form of individual grains and clusters. Contrary to this, for samples with smaller grain size, shear bands were formed around the plastified hole and sand was produced in the form of big chunks or slabs.

An integrated laboratory experiment of realistic diagenesis,perforation and sand production using a large artificial sandstone specimen

Sand production is,a challenging issue in petroleum industry,mainly associated with weak unconsolidated formations.A novel testing procedure and a new apparatus were developed to conduct an integrated experiment of diagenesis,perforation and sand production on a single large cylindrical artificial sandstone specimen,where solid and fluid pressures can be independently controlled such that realistic reservoir historical conditions can be well simulated in the laboratory.Fluid injection can be performed in both radial and vertical directions,where both single-and two-phase flows can be implemented for study of sand production behaviors at different reservoir’s maturity stages.The equipment consists of an intensive instrumentation system to monitor pressures,displacements and material states continuously.The produced sand particles were filtered and monitored in real-time for the study of time-dependent phenomena.The experimental results showed similar patterns to that observed in the field and provided valuable insight for the development of prediction methods for sand production of similar materials.

The impact of salinity,alkalinity and nanoparticle concentration on zeta-potential of sand minerals and their implication on sand production

The effect of brine salinity,cation type,pH,and produced sand on zeta potential(ZP)measurements with and without the presence of silica nanoparticles is investigated through pH measurement,static tests for sand and ZP measurements as well as Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope(FESEM)analyses.Three important factors were investigated:composition of the injected brine,surface charge and pH.Their influence on stability of nanoparticles in the injected brine and amount of sand segregation was determined and the analysis of the new outcomes based on rock/brine ZP measurements was reported.The results show that the use of silica nanoparticles with high pH helps in preventing sand production and that pH has a main effect on the surface charge of the sand particle released,affecting the ZP of the solution.Nanoparticles can be active as a coating on sand grains and prevent sand segregation during water flooding.Divalent cations have been found to acquire a more substantial impact on neutralizing the negative charge of the sand particles than monovalent cations at the same concentration and pH conditions at 25℃.The value of ZP becomes of higher negative value with the decrease of brine salinity.The effectiveness of SiO_(2)nanoparticles is quite different for soft water and smart water.For soft water,the nanoparticles work more effective at pH higher than 8;and for smart water,the nanoparticles perform better at pH lower than 8.To reduce sand production with the use of silica nanoparticles,it is highly suggested to increase pH,as pH and sand production mechanisms were observed to be inversely related.

Experimental study on sand production and coupling response of silty hydrate reservoir with different contents of fine clay during depressurization

To further understand the characteristics of clay and sand production(hereafter collectively referred to as sand production)and to provide optimization designs of sand control schemes are critical for gas production from clayey silt natural gas hydrate reservoirs in the South China Sea.Thus,gas-water-sand production behavoirs and coupling reservoir subsidence characteristics before,during,and after hydrate dissociation of the clayey silt hydrate reservoirs with different clay contents(5%,10%,15%,20%,25%,and 30%)have been studied through a self-developed experimental system.The results show that with the increase of clay content,the total mass of sand production first increases and then decreases,and it reaches maximum when the clayey content is 20%.The sand production is the lowest before hydrate dissociation and increases significantly during hydrate dissociation,which mainly occurs in the high-speed gas and water production stage at the beginning of hydrate dissociation.After hydrate dissociation,the sand production decreases significantly.During the whole depressurization process,the clay and free sand particles generally move to the sand outlet due to the fluid driving force and overlying stress extrusion.However,for conditions of high clay contents,those particles fail to pass through the sand control screen and gradually accumulate and block the screen by forming a mud cake,which greatly reduce the permeability of the screen and limite sand production as well as gas and water production.Our research lays a foundation for sand production prediction and sand control scheme selection during gas recovery from clayey silty hydrate reservoirs that greatly need to consider a balance between sand control and gas productivity.

Using deep neural networks coupled with principal component analysis for ore production forecasting at open-pit mines

Ore production is usually affected by multiple influencing inputs at open-pit mines.Nevertheless,the complex nonlinear relationships between these inputs and ore production remain unclear.This becomes even more challenging when training data(e.g.truck haulage information and weather conditions)are massive.In machine learning(ML)algorithms,deep neural network(DNN)is a superior method for processing nonlinear and massive data by adjusting the amount of neurons and hidden layers.This study adopted DNN to forecast ore production using truck haulage information and weather conditions at open-pit mines as training data.Before the prediction models were built,principal component analysis(PCA)was employed to reduce the data dimensionality and eliminate the multicollinearity among highly correlated input variables.To verify the superiority of DNN,three ANNs containing only one hidden layer and six traditional ML models were established as benchmark models.The DNN model with multiple hidden layers performed better than the ANN models with a single hidden layer.The DNN model outperformed the extensively applied benchmark models in predicting ore production.This can provide engineers and researchers with an accurate method to forecast ore production,which helps make sound budgetary decisions and mine planning at open-pit mines.

Sand production:A smart control framework for risk mitigation

Due to the current global oil price,the sand production is considered undesirable product and the control of sand production is considered as one of the main concerns of production engineers.It can damage downhole,subsea equipments and surface production facilities,also increasing the risk of catastrophic failure.As a result of that it costs the producers multiple millions of dollars each year.Therefore,there are many different approaches of sand control designed for different reservoir conditions.Selecting an appropriate technique for preventing formation sand production depends on different reservoir parameters.Therefore,choosing the best sand control method is the result of systematic study.In this paper the sand production factors and their effects are presented where the emphasis is given towards the sand prediction to determine the probability of producing sand from the reservoir,followed by the correct prevention implementation of sand control method.The combination of these two is presented as a smart control framework that can be applied for sand production management.

Fluid flow with compaction and sand production in unconsolidated sandstone reservoir

The fluid flow of unconsolidated sandstone reservoir can be affected by compaction and sand production which will damage the reservoir and affect oil well productivity.This study aims to measure how the two factors affect the fluid flow.Firstly,single-phase displacement test was applied to investigate how the permeability changed with compaction.Then two-phase displacement test assessed the influence of compaction on oil production.Finally,the characteristics of fluid flow with compaction and sand production were studied under different water content.The results demonstrate that the reduction of permeability with compaction is irreversible,which will result in lower productivity.In contrast,sand production can increase the permeability at mid and high water content,which slows down the decline of oil production.Generally,the oil well productivity is reduced because of compaction even with sand production,especially when the formation pressure drop varies from 2MPa to 4MPa.Consequently,advance water injection is necessary to keep the formation pressure and oil production during oilfield development of unconsolidated sandstone reservoir.Simultaneously,the study can provide theoretical basis and references for the similar reservoirs.

Sand production control mechanisms during oil well production and construction

Sand production is considered as one of the significant production issues that significantly reduce wellbore productivity.The process of sand or solids production in production operations is one of the crucial operational inefficiencies that can lead to wells collapsing.Besides,the drilling mud might erupt through the formation.Therefore,it is essential to properly determine what types of solids or sand are produced to correctly predict efficient sand control mechanisms.This paper aimed to compare different sand production control mechanisms and how to control or minimize sand production.Moreover,we consider injection pressure and sand moisture on the sand production rate.According to this study’s findings,pressure injection and moisture increase had caused sand production increase,which should be considered in operational performances.Furthermore,chemical injection such as resin and hydrogel injection usually has efficient sand production control methods.An expandable sand screen is an expandable three-layer component that is driven into the well and expanded.

Experimental study on solid particle migration and production behaviors during marine natural gas hydrate dissociation by depressurization

Sand production is one of the main obstacles restricting gas extraction efficiency and safety from marine natural gas hydrate(NGH)reservoirs.Particle migration within the NGH reservoir dominates sand production behaviors,while their relationships were rarely reported,severely constrains quantitative evaluation of sand production risks.This paper reports the optical observations of solid particle migration and production from micrometer to mesoscopic scales conditioned to gravel packing during depressurization-induced NGH dissociation for the first time.Theoretical evolutionary modes of sand migration are established based on experimental observations,and its implications on field NGH are comprehensively discussed.Five particle migration regimes of local borehole failure,continuous collapse,wormhole expansion,extensive slow deformation,and pore-wall fluidization are proved to occur during depressurization.The types of particle migration regimes and their transmission modes during depressurization are predominantly determined by initial hydrate saturation.In contrast,the depressurization mainly dominates the transmission rate of the particle migration regimes.Furthermore,both the cumulative mass and the medium grain size of the produced sand decrease linearly with increasing initial methane hydrate(MH)saturation.Discontinuous gas bubble emission,expansion,and explosion during MH dissociation delay sand migration into the wellbore.At the same time,continuous water flow is a requirement for sand production during hydrate dissociation by depressurization.The experiments enlighten us that a constitutive model that can illustrate visible particle migration regimes and their transmission modes is urgently needed to bridge numerical simulation and field applications.Optimizing wellbore layout positions or special reservoir treatment shall be important for mitigating sand production tendency during NGH exploitation.

Role of plastic zone porosity and permeability in sand production in weak sandstone reservoirs

Sand production is often characterized as a two-stage process,in which material failure occurs near the cavity,leading to the formation of a plastic zone,from which particles are detached and transported out because of continuous hydrodynamic erosion under the effects of the produced fluid flow.The plastic zone porosity is affected by coupled processes,while the plastic zone permeability has a significant impact on the performance of sand production prediction,especially in weak sandstone reservoirs.Large-scale sand production experiments were conducted using a customized high-pressure consolidation apparatus.The results show that specific stress-fluid pressure conditions may create a plastic zone around a hole,which has lower permeability than the intact zone.The plastic zone comprises two subzones:a high-permeability shear band zone and a low-permeability compaction zone.During sand production,sand migrates from the compaction zone through the shear band zone to the perforation hole.Thus,sand production is associated with the increased permeability and porosity in the compaction zone.Existing sand prediction models were modified according to the new findings,resulting in a modified model with improved performance.The modified model was validated using the sanding data from a weak sandstone reservoir in Kazakhstan.

Root cause of sand production and methodologies for prediction

The consequences of sandstone reservoir rock failure may lead to sand production.This phenomenon can have negative impact on lifting cost and economic of any field development.Metal erosion due to sanding can lead to loss of integrity and hydrocarbon leakage.Poor decision on the type of completion can risk the viability of the field.To facilitate best sand management over the life of a field and to maintain economical productivity,accurate prediction of sand production volume/rates is needed to increase both productivity and the ultimate recovery of the hydrocarbon while keeping the operating cost low.This paper summarizes the sand production modeling for onset and volume of sand namely technology that required to improve understanding on sand production and mitigation.Three main questions will be answered,why industry needs to worry about sand production,what are the available technologies to predict sanding volume/rates finally,how the current technologies can be improved to estimate sand production volume/rates.

Prediction of sand production onset in petroleum reservoirs using a reliable classification approach

Controlling sand production in the petroleum industry has been a long-standing problem for more than 70 years.To provide technical support for sand control strategy,it is necessary to predict the conditions at which sanding occurs.To this end,for the first time,least square support machine(LSSVM)classification approach,as a novel technique,is applied to identify the conditions under which sand production occurs.The model presented in this communication takes into account different parameters that may play a role in sanding.The performance of proposed LSSVM model is examined using field data reported in open literature.It is shown that the developed model can accurately predict the sand production in a real field.The results of this study indicates that implementation of LSSVM modeling can effectively help completion designers to make an on time sand control plan with least deterioration of production.

Numerical simulation of sanding using a coupled hydro-mechanical sand erosion model

Mechanical failure of materials adjacent to the production cavity and material disaggregation caused by fluid drag are considered as the most important parameters that affect sand production.In light of such factors,the coupling of two mechanisms-mechanical instability and hydrodynamic erosion-is indispensable in order to model this phenomenon successfully.This paper examines the applicability of a coupled hydro-mechanical erosion criterion for simulating sand production using the finite element method.The porous medium was considered fully saturated.The onset of sanding and production of sand were predicted by coupling mechanical failure and subsequent erosion of the grain particles utilizing a sanding model.To consider the erosion process,the Papamichos and Stavropoulou(1998)’s sand erosion criterion was incorporated into the finite element code.Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian(ALE)adaptive mesh approach was used to account for large amounts of erosive material loss.Besides,in order to address the problem of severe mesh distortion,the“mesh mapping technique”was employed.Sand production in a horizontal wellbore and in a field case was simulated to demonstrate capabilities of the proposed model.In addition,principal parameters affecting sand production,including in situ stresses,cohesion,perforation orientation,and drawdown were examined.The results indicated the efficiency of the model used in evaluation of sanding in the field.Parametric studies indicated that in situ stresses and formation cohesion could be considered as dominant factors affecting the amount of sand production.

Establishment of tensile failure induced sanding onset prediction model for cased-perforated gas wells

Sand production is a challenging issue in upstream oil and gas industry,causing operational and safety problems.Therefore,before drilling the wells,it is essential to predict and evaluate sanding onset of the wells.In this paper,new poroelastoplastic stress solutions around the perforation tunnel and tip based on the Mohr-Coulomb criterion are presented firstly.Based on the stress models,a tensile failure induced sanding onset prediction model for cased-perforated gas wells is derived.Then the analytical model is applied to field data to verify its applicability.The results from the perforation tip tensile failure induced sanding model are very close to field data.Therefore,this model is recommended for forecasting the critical conditions of sand production analysis.Such predictions are necessary for providing technical support for sand control decision-making and predicting the production condition at which sanding onset occurs.

Prediction of rock brittleness using nondestructive methods for hard rock tunneling

Sand production is an undesired phenomenon occurring in unconsolidated formations due to shear failure and hydrodynamic forces. There have been many approaches developed to predict sand production and prevent it by changing drilling or production strategies. However, assumptions involved in these approaches have limited their applications to very specific scenarios. In this paper, an elliptical model based on the borehole shape is presented to predict the volume of sand produced during the drilling and depletion stages of oil and gas reservoirs. A shape factor parameter is introduced to estimate the changes in the geometry of the borehole as a result of shear failure. A carbonate reservoir from the south of Iran with a solid production history is used to show the application of the developed methodology. Deriving mathematical equations for determination of the shape factor based on different failure criteria indicate that the effect of the intermediate principal stress should be taken into account to achieve an accurate result. However, it should be noticed that the methodology presented can only be used when geomechanical parameters are accurately estimated prior to the production stage when using wells and field data.

Investigation of production depletion rate effect on the ne ar-wellbore stresses in the two Iranian southwest oilfields|

Effect of depletion rate on wellbore stability due to production of oil from hydrocarbon-bearing reser-voirs is important and can result in a reduction of the reservoir pore pressure.A reduction in the reservoir pressure,in tum,results in a change in the stresses acting within the reservoir.If these changes are not well analyzed and applied in future calculations,we may be unsuccessful in some cases such as drilling infill wells or extended wells,forecast of sand production and optimum flow rate,preventing of casing collapse,etc.Therefore,knowing the stresses around the well at every stage of production is fundamental to the next calculations.In this paper,we recognized these changes in near-wellbore stresses using data from logging(image log,dipole sonic,full set log,mud log),production data,infor-mation from kick,blow out,loss etc.and determined it using Techlog software and theoretical calcu-lations.Three wells of two huge oilfields of sw Iran were investigated after depletion or production for long years.In each well,state of stresses were calculated in cases of safe drilling mud weight using log data and theoretical equations.At the end effect of depletion rate on wellbore stability was investigated in these three wells.

Cross-flow analysis of injection wells in a multilayered reservoir

During fluid injection into a multilayered reservoir,a different pressure gradient is generated across the face of each permeable layer.This pressure gradient generates driving forces in the wellbore during well shut-in that causes the injected fluid moves from higher pressure layers to lower pressure layers,a phenomenon known as interwell cross-flow.Cross-flow behavior depends on the initial pressure in the permeable layers and may be referred to as natural cross-flow(identical or natural initial pressures)and forced cross-flow(different initial pressures because of exploitation).Cross-flow may induce sand production and liquefaction in the higher pressure layers as well as formation damage,filter cake build-up and permeability reduction in the lower pressure layers.Thus,understanding cross-flow during well shut-in is important from a production and reservoir engineering perspective,particularly in unconsolidated or poorly consolidated sandstone reservoirs.Natural and forced cross-flow is modeled for some injection wells in an oil reservoir located at North Sea.The solution uses a transient implicit finite difference approach for multiple sand layers with different permeabilities separated by impermeable shale layers.Natural and forced cross-flow rates for each reservoir layer during shut-in are calculated and compared with different production logging tool(PLT)measurements.It appears that forced cross-flow is usually more prolonged and subject to a higher flow rate when compared with natural cross-flow,and is thus worthy of more detailed analysis.