Publications

The problem of sand significantly plagues many reservoirs and has strongly affected benefit-cost relationships in the oil industry for years. Sand production is defined as the production of small or large amounts of solids, together with reservoir fluids. Sanding problems are caused by many factors, such as: formation strength, effective stress and pressure depletion in a reservoir. There will always be a risk of sand problem in a well. The onset of sanding prediction for a payzone is an important step to know when sand appears in a well, and then we can predict the volume of sand produced in order to select the optimum sand control method. In this study, stress components around the wellbore are determined by logging data, MDT test data, LOT’s/FIT’s data and an Anderson correlation. Formation strength is determined by logging data, and then correlated to laboratory test data to get the most accurate formation strength. Those data will be used to secure critical drawdown pressure (CDP) and critical reservoir pressure (CRP). Then we can calculate the quantity of sand produced if the value is exceeded. In this study we calculate an estimation of the amount of free sand generated between sheared planes caused by fluid drawdown or the sand production capacity by using a Musaed & Talal correlation. From the results of this study, we can predict that a given analyzed well will carry a high risk of sand problem. We can also predict the volume of sand produced so we can choose the optimal sand control method. The calculation shows that the sand produced can be tolerated. By using this estimation we can determine the optimal sand control method.