sand control

screen plugging

hydrate particles

Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

Sand retaining media plugging in sand control wells has become a common and urgent problem in the oil and gas industry. Yet, no unified analysis or industry standards on the evaluation of the sand retaining media has been reported recently.  In this paper, a systematic approach was presented to investigate the performance of sand control screens. A series of tasks were performed, including the processing of sand control simulation unit, the analysis of formation parameters such as the size of formation sand and reservoir fluid viscosity, the determining of pressure drop through the sand retaining medium, the calculation of oil-production index and so on.  The importance of using the sand control unit was clearly demonstrated. The pressure drop along block sand media was determined in three different positions simultaneously with the high precision pressure sensor. The process of forming the sand bridge was recorded for all tests using a Digital Camera. The oil-production index and permeability of the sand control screen were calculated based on the flow rate and pressure drop. An electron microscope was conducted to observe the plugging of the sand control screens. This process is conducive to analyze the clogging process of sand control screens and optimize the design of sand control parameters. The amount and particle size distribution of sand produced and sand arch also were determined. These parameters are very important to the sand control properties of sand control screens. A set of novel sand control physical simulation experiment device was introduced to measure the above parameters. The measurement techniques and procedures presented in this paper provide a standard measurement protocol for the characterization of different sand control screens. The result of a case test shows that the new test method presented in this paper can effectively improve the drawbacks of existing methods.

A new laboratory protocol to study the plugging and sand control performance of sand control screens