PE:330

Oil Well Completion

)5( ‫محاضرة‬
Sand Control
‫عيسى مصطفى تابار‬.‫ ا‬:‫المحاضر‬
‫استاذ مساعد في قسم الهندسة النفطية‬
Office: 3th Floor @ Engineering Labs building
Email: Essatabar@su.edu.ly
Phone: (+218)919734091
Sirte University
Petroleum Engineering Department
Fall (2020-2021)
 Sand control
The installation of equipment or application of
techniques to prevent migration of reservoir sand into
the wellbore or near-wellbore area. In weak
formations.
sand control may be necessary to maintain the
structure of the reservoir around the wellbore.

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 Solids control .Sand control V.S
Sand control has always played an important role in oil
production,
Solids control plays an important role in oil well drilling.
They are utilized in different area.
Solids control is a technique used for well drilling to
provide prepared drilling fluids for drilling rigs.
Solids control equipments
( shale shaker, desander, desilter, mud cleaner, decanter
centrifuge, centrifugal pump, vacuum degasser,mud
agitator, mud gun, mud tank, etc),
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 Sand Control
• Unconsolidated sandstone reservoirs with
permeability of 0.5 to 8 darcies are most
susceptible to sand production.

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 Causes of sand production
• Stress on sand grains during fluid production
tend to move them into the wellbore.
These stresses are caused by:
1) Pressure differences in the formation.
2) Fluid fictional forces.
3) Weight of the overburden.

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 Prediction of sand control
1. Formation Strength
It is to determine the hardness of the formation rock (i.e., the rock's
compressive strength).
2. Sonic Log
The sonic log can be used as a way of addressing the sand
production potential of wells. The sonic log records the time
required for sound waves to travel through the formation,
The porosity is related to formation strength and the sonic travel
time.
Short travel times, less than 50 microseconds, indicate low porosity
and hard, dense rock; long travel times, 95 microseconds or greater,
are associated with soft, low-density, high-porosity rock.

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3. Porosity
If the formation porosity is greater than 30%,
the probability of the need for sand control is
high because of the lack of cementation.
Conversely, if the porosity is less than 20%, the
need for sand control will probably be minimal
because the sand has some consolidation.
4. prediction of potential sand problem is usually
a correlation based on the performance of
offset wells producing from the same reservoir.

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 Consequences of Sand Production
1. Accumulation Downhole
2. Erosion of Downhole and Surface Equipment
3. . Collapse of the Formation
4. Productivity loss

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 Accumulation Downhole .1
If the production velocity in well tubulars is
insufficient to transport sand to the surface, it
will begin to fill the inside of the casing.
Eventually, the producing interval may be
completely covered with sand. In this case, the
production rate will decline until the well
becomes "sanded up" and production ceases

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 Erosion of Downhole and Surface .2
Equipment
If fluids are in turbulent flow, such sand-laden
fluids are highly erosive. If the erosion is severe
or occurs long enough, complete failure of
surface and/or downhole equipment may occur,
resulting in critical safety and environmental
problems as well as deferred production.

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3. Collapse of the Formation
Collapse of the formation around the well occurs
when large volumes of sand are produced.
4. Productivity loss occurs when a sand bridge
forms in the production tubing. short-long-term
productivity of the well

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 Sand detection
• Two currently available devices detect sand
produced to the surface
A. Exxon sand Prope
B. Mobile sonic sand Probe

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 Sand Control Techniques
1. Pre-Packed Screens
2. Frac Packs
3. Gravel Pack Operations

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 Pre-Packed Screens .1
These are very useful in open-hole completions,
in horizontal well completions, and in cased hole
completions where sloughing sand is a problem.
The pre-packed screen (Figure a) contains a layer
of resin-coated sand/gravel between two
screens.
After the screens are run into the hole, the well
is gravel packed in the usual manner.

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 Frac Packs .2
This is a recent development for completions, where
cased hole gravel pack and hydraulicfracturing are
combined to give increased productivity than when
using those completion techniques separately.

Once the zone is hydraulically fractured, the gravel is

used at the proppant and this is followed by
inserting a gravel pack screen into the wellbore.

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 Gravel Pack Operations .3
• When gravel pack screens are run into the
wellbore, they must be run in with great care
to ensure the screens are kept clean and to
minimize damage to those screens.
• Also when the gravel is placed into the
formation/ wellbore, it must be kept clean, it
must be tightly packed, and it must not cause
damage to the formation.

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 References
• Dr. Magdi Almabrok
Faculty of Energy Technologies – SoKhora, Libya
Drilling Technology, Jamal Siavoshi, Memorial
University of Newfoundland, Earth Science Dept.
NL, Canada

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