IPA18-161-SE

PROCEEDINGS INDONESIAN PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION

Forty-Second Annual Convention and Exhibition, May 2018

APPLICATION OF NOVEL DOPED NANOMATERIAL RESIN TO INCREASE SAND

CONSOLIDATION IN A LOOSE SANDSTONE RESERVOIR

William Angtony*
Hadi Winarto*
Steven Chandra*
Herianto*
Yulio Adhitya Nugroho*
Taufan Marhaendrajana*

ABSTRACT studies in order to tackle this troublesome

Sand production is a major problem in the
petroleum industry. Most fields located in
Kalimantan Island experience severe sand
problems. Various methods and techniques
including mechanical and chemical methods have
been proposed but some have failed and some have
been ineffective in controlling sand production.
Traditional sand control methods tend to solve
sand production problems but cause a significant
drop in the value of the permeability of the
reservoir.
This study comprises of the evaluation of a new
chemical composition to consolidate the loose
sand at their contact point so that it can withstand
the drag forces induced by the reservoir fluids and
other induced forces. The proposed chemical used
is the combination of nano silica and resin. This
study is focussed to study the effect of
concentration to the compressive strength of the
injected core. Permeability is then measured to
make sure that there is no significant reduction in
the permeability of the core.
reservoir nature.
Saucier (1974) was one of the pioneers in
designing proper sand control methods by using
gravel pack. He proposed a rule of thumb equation
that is still widely used today in the oil and gas
industries to properly size gravel packs. As durable
as it is cheap, the gravel pack is not heavily reliable
when faced with excessive sand production in a
long-time span where the possible choking effect
can have a severe effect on productivity. Tippie
and Kolhaas (1974) highlighted the importance of
properly containing sand production by defining a
new skin factor that is attributed to sand
production. Bratli and Risnes (1979) introduced
the important concept of stable sand arch in
perforated wells, where a stable arch could be
formed naturally after a well is perforated that acts
as a natural filter to small sand production.
However, the arch stability criterion is not always
properly defined as it relies on vast amount of data
and sometimes geomechanical properties in the
near wellbore region cannot be analyzed in a static
fashion.

Keywords: Sand Consolidation, Sand Control,
Nanomaterial, Organosilane
INTRODUCTION
Sand production has been a latent problem during
the lifespan of oil and gas production. It has the
negative effect of reducing well productivity,
deteriorating surface facilities and its corrosive
effect can also reduce well integrity. Problems
related to excessive sand production can happen
even in the early stages of field development and
proactive plans should be derived after geological
As sand problems sprout in oil and gas fields around
the world, the attention that was previously devoted
into designing mechanical sand control methods are
now diverted into properly modeling sand
production using geomechanics techniques that have
been successfully adapted from mining engineering.
Massie et al (1987) was the first to incorporate rock
failure criterion in designing sand control methods
for the Gullfaks field in the North Sea. Further
developments are attributed into modelling rock
failure that is the main culprit of sand production
which was done by Veeken (1991), Anderson
(1986), Morita (1989), and Hainey (1992).

* Institute of Technology Bandung

The development of sand control technology in
Indonesia also relies on gravel pack, as it is one of
the most economical methods to be installed.
However, as reservoir pressure drops, affecting oil
productivity as well, it is therefore not economical
anymore to rely on gravel pack, which requires a lot
of workover during its process. Companies have
shifted into more permanent solutions such as screen
or wire mesh for onshore wells, and frac pack for
offshore wells. These mechanical methods are
reliable in the long run, but the cost is somewhat high
for low productivity wells. Davies (1991) proposed a
chemical consolidation method utilizing readily
available industrial grade polymer to reduce the need
for expensive stainless steel mechanical sand control
devices. The chemical method has its own merit, as
it increases rock compressive strength and
consolidating loose sands, however care must be
taken in designing the chemical composition due to
the fact that excessive injection would create plugs
that blocks reservoir permeability. In this
publication, we utilize the easily available epoxy
resin to consolidate loose artificial sandstone core.
Epoxy resin has been proved to be protective of
water and hydrocarbon invasion up to 80 to 130°F
(Marfo, 2015) and has been known to possess better
bonding quality compared to other commercially
available resins such as furans or phenolics. Mishra
and Ojha (2016) were the first researchers who
proposed the utilization of urea formaldehyde resin
imbibed with nanosilica for sand consolidation.
However, this study requires constant high
temperature to maintain chemical integrity of the
mixture, thus making it not economical to be applied
in Indonesia where low reservoir temperature is
mostly encountered and the availability of urea
formaldehyde resin is an issue as it is not easily
obtained due to security measures.
METHODS
The methodology used in this research includes, but
is not limited to permeability measurement, biaxial
tester and core flooding. Core flooding is a
laboratory test in which a fluid or combination of
fluids is injected into a sample of rock. We use the
core sample that is made in the laboratory with
certain specifications. This process is utilized to
inject nanoparticle mixture with brine using only
linear displacement inside the core sample to
maintain integrity and equal amount of nanoparticle
distribution. The principle of this test is to show how
liquids flow through rock. Depending on the purpose
of the test, coreflood conditions may be either
ambient temperature and low confining pressure or
high temperature and pressure of a subject reservoir.
In this experiment, we measure the change in
permeability across a number of combination of
composition from organosilane and nanosilica
compounds mixed with a diluted mixture of
epoxybased resin to obtain optimum permeability
reduction of loose sandstone reservoir without
penalizing its economic flow rate. We also conduct
tests on biaxial strength of the core samples imbibed
with the composition mentioned previously to
maintain its integrity under pressure cycling due to
the effects of oil and gas production.
The merit of this research is that we employ an
inexpensive top-down method to physically produce
nanosilica from silica grains that are easily
obtainable almost everywhere, especially in relation
to remainders of cuttings from oil and gas drilling
activity. Wang and Xia (2004) explained that there
are currently two approaches in creating nanoparticle
of a single compound, namely the top down and
bottom up approach, which is summarized in the
Table 1.
Based on the considerations presented by Wang &
Xia (2004), the authors decided that the top-down
approach is suitable for applications of nanosilica in
sand control activity due to its low cost and that
currently there is no need of advanced nanosilica that
could serve as wettability altering agent, although
later developments will encourage multitasking
nanosilica to be employed.
The nanosilica are prepared from mesh 100
sandstone obtained from local sources. The sand is
then manually ground to reduce agglomeration due
to presence of humidity and ensuring higher
efficiency of the ball mill utilized for making
nanosilica, as shown in figure 1. The ball milling
process itself was done in an affiliated institution that
specializes in providing scientific services, with the
specifications listed below and described in figure 2,
with resulting nanosilica potrayed in figure 3.
In this research, we used several artificial sandstone
cores using the ratio 65 % sand to 35% cement in
order to properly simulate unconsolidated sandstone
reservoir. In total, 11 artificial cores were made to
test permeability reduction and compressive strength
properties of resin mixture. In order to properly
consolidate the aforementioned sandstone cores, a
mixture of epoxy resin, organosylane and nanosilica
were made. Due to its chemical affinity, heating is
not required in order to mix these two substances, but
there are traces of colloidal mass that appear at the
bottom of the container. For this research, the
apparatus utilized are gas permeameter, gas
porosimeter and hydraulic press as shown in figures
4-6. The material used are synthetic sandstone core
made from 100 mesh sand, class G cement, epoxy
resin and organosilane, where the core samples are
shown in figure 7. The concoctions are divided into
two sections: base case using standard epoxy mixture
as described by Chandra (2016), portrayed in figure
8 and the modified concoction utilizing colloidal
nanosilica that can be seen in figure 9. It is also worth
noting that the nanosilica has to be properly mixed
using agitation and the remaining suspended
materials ought to be filtrated in order to reduce
plugging in porous sandstone cores tested.
To obtain more accurate results, we divide the tests
into two aspects A and B, where part A is dedicated
to test the effect of nanosilica- doped resin against
compressive strength, whilst part B will be tested
against permeability reduction. A total of 6
artificial cores are utilized for this project, with the
dimension ranging around 1” x 1.5”, where 11
cores were built but 5 cores were deemed to be too
unstable for further testing. It is also important to
note that porosity and permeability are measured
using gas porosimeter and gas permeameter
consecutively, with the samples exhibiting
porosity ranging from 22-26% and permeability
ranging from 400 md-2000 md for very loose
sands. Base case cores are also used as a
comparison for technical and economical values of
application of nanosilica in maintaining reservoir
consolidation.
RESULTS
From the resulting tests, we have found that the
application of nanosilica in doping epoxy-based
concoction greatly reduces the need of more
expensive chemicals and acts as an intermediate
chemical compound that allows consolidation by
seeping into unconsolidated pore networks and is
able to assist in withholding granular invasion due to
pressure drawdown and intergranular friction. As
seen on table 2 and figure 10, where in table 2 the top
three rows depict nanosilica doped cores and the
bottom three depicts base case, we can conclude that
the addition of 8000 ppm of nanosilica compound, it
effectively reduces the value of penalized
permeability as a side effect of resin consolidation.
Previous publications, including Chandra (2016)
noted that excessive addition of epoxy mixture into
unconsolidated cores in the end tend to plug
interconnecting porous network in sandstone cores.
Therefore, preventive measures must be done to
acquire the correct mixture that is not too thinly
diluted or excessively diluted with organic
compounds. The presence of nanosilica in these tests
reduces the requirement of continuous monitoring
of permeability reduction parameter, as it helps in
reducing the negative effects of epoxy injection.
Table 3 and figure 11 also pinpoints the reliability
of nanosilica compound in increasing
compressive strength of sandstone cores. This
parameter signifies the amount of pressure that is
needed to implement first crack in rock sample,
where in sand control measures this parameter
implies the integrity of rock samples against
overburden pressure and hydrostatic pressure
from column of fluid (water or hydrocarbon). The
test results in exemplary fashion where cores
injected with nanosilica proceeds to withstand
more pressure compared to base case. This is
caused by the relatively minuscule nanosilica
which is able to seep between small cracks or
weaknesses, reducing the amount of disintegrated
parts inside core samples. Further studies must be
encouraged in order to properly map the
propagation of nanosilica inside pore networks
using relevant methods, and the exact integrity-
strengthening mechanism must be investigated
further in future publications. However, this
avant-garde study should prove to be eye-opening
to industry practitioners that siliceous materials
that are often regarded as waste materials can be
recycled and engineered as a prudent solution for
containing excessive sand production.
CONCLUSION
This publication addresses an alternative
utilization of siliceous material as a method to
counteract sand production problems that mostly
occur in unconsolidated high rate or mature oil and
gas wells. Based on the results of compressive test
and permeability reduction tests, we conclude that
this material has a potential to be further utilized
in field applications for mitigating and containing
troublesome sand production.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to extend their gratitude to
OGRINDO Research Consortium that has
supported the research from the beginning, and Dr.
Edy Sanwani, MT from Mineral and Ore
Processing Laboratory (FTTM ITB) for his
guidance in processing silica material. It is also
worth noting that this work cannot be done without
priceless assistance of Advanced Material
Processing Unit in BATAN Bandung.
REFERENCES
Anderson, R. Coates, G., Denoo, S., Edwards, D.,
Risnes, R., 1986, Formation Collapse in a Producing
Well, The Technical Review, Vol 34, No 3, p.29-32.
Bratli, R.K. and Risnes, R., 1979, Stability and
Failure of Sand Arches, SPE Annual Technical
Conference and Exhibition.
Chandra, S. Tsalitsah, G. Nuriyanto, M. Nazneen, N.
Leonardo, S., Marhaendrajana, T., 2016, Laboratory
Study on the Effects of Resin Aging Phenomenon for
Epoxy-Based Consolidation of Sandstone Core,
Presented at OGRINDO Research Consortium
Annual Meeting.
Davies, D.R., Applications of Polymers in Sand
Control, 1991, Use of Polymers in Drilling and
Oilifield Fluids Seminar.
Hainey, B.W. and Troncoso, J.C., 1992, Frac Pack:
An Innovative Stimulation and Sand Control
Technique, SPE International Symposium on
Formation Damage Control.
Massie, I. Nygaard, O., Morita, N., 1987, Gullfaks
Subsea Wells: An Operator Implementation of a
New Sand Production Prediction Model, SPE
Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, 1987.
Mishra, S., and Ojha, K., 2016, A Novel Chemical
Composition to Consolidate the Loose Sand
Formation in Oil Field, International Petroleum
Technology Conference.
Morita, N. and Boyd, P.A., 1991, Typical Sand
Production Problems: Case Studies and Strategies
for Sand Control, SPE Annual Technical Conference
and Exhibition.
Santarelli, F.J., Oudhafel, H. Zundel, J.P., 1991,
Optimizing the Completion Procedure to Minimize
Sand Production, SPE Annual Technical Conference
and Exhibition.
Saucier R.J., 1974, Considerations in Gravel Pack
Design, Journal of Petroleum Technology, Vol.26,
p.205-212.
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of Skin Damage with Flow Rate Associated with
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Reservoir, SPE Annual California Regional
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Veeken, C.A.M., Davies, D.R, Kenter, C.J.,
Kooijman, A.P., 1991, Sand Production Prediction
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 TABLE 1

COMPARISON OF TOP-DOWN AND BOTTOM-UP NANOPARTICLE SYNTHESIS

(MODIFIED FROM WANG & XIA, 2004)

Parameter Top-Down Bottom-Up

Methods Physical high energy grinding, Chemical process, such as Sol-Gel,
milling, and cryogenic process Thermal, Controlled Hydrolysis

Size Macroparticles to nanoparticles Atomic size to nanoparticles

Cost Relatively cheaper for grinding or Expensive
milling
Uniformity Considerably within normal Highly uniform
distribution
Chemical Same as before or minimal changes Heavy chemical properties
Properties alteration

TABLE 2

RESULTS OF PERMEABILITY REDUCTION TESTS

Case Core Initial K Final K Reduction (%)

1+N* E1 3021.5 1568.8 48.07876882

2+N E2 3604.9 1882.9 47.76831535

3+N E3 796.59 532.4 33.16511631

1 E10 3502.3 1634.3 53.33637895

2 E7 2398 540.81 77.44745621

3 E9 2381.8 1580.1 33.65941725

*
) Nanosilica injected cores

 
 TABLE 3

RESULTS OF COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH TESTS

Case Core No Compressive Strength

1+N* E1 1830.755863

2+N E2 2444.596599

3+N E3 1794.745096

1 E10 1509.191341

2 E7 2352.099361

3 E9 1798.919542
*
) Nanosilica injected cores

 
 Figure 1 - Preprocessing of Siliceous Material Using Manual Milling

Figure 2 - Specification and Cross Section of Planetarium Ball Miller

 
 Figure 3 - Nano Silica Powder Resulting from Planetarium Ball Milling Process

Figure 4 - PERG Gas Permeameter

 
 Figure 5 - PORG Gas Porosimeter

Figure 6 - Hydraulic Press

 
 Figure 7 - Samples of Unconsolidated Sandstone Cores

Figure 8 - Standard Epoxy Mixture for Base Case

 
 (a) (b)

Figure 9 - Nanosilica Doped Concoction (a) Before and (b) After Filtration

Permeability Reduction
90
Permeability Reduction (%)

80
70
60
50
40 w/o Nanosilica
30 with Nanosilica
20
10
0
1 2 3
Sample No

Figure 10 - Comparison of Permeability Reduction (%) From Three Test Cases

 
 Compressive Strength
3000

Compressive Strength (psi)

2500

2000

1500
w/o Nanosilica
1000 with Nanosilica

500

0
1 2 3
Sample No

Figure 11 - Comparison of Compressive Strength Increment from Three Test Cases