Screenless method to control Sand Production

Causes of Sand Production

The solid material produced from a well can consist of both formation fines (usually not
considered part of the formation’s mechanical framework) and load bearing solids. The
production of fines cannot normally be prevented and is actually beneficial. Fines moving
freely through the formation or an installed gravel pack are preferable to plugging of the
formation or gravel pack.

The critical factor to assessing the risk of sand production from a particular well is whether
or not the production of load bearing particles can be maintained below an acceptable level
at the anticipated flow rates and producing conditions which will make the well production
acceptable.
The following list summarizes many of the factors that influence the tendency of a well to
produce sand:
 Degree of consolidation
 Reduction in pore pressure throughout the life of a well
 Production rate
 Reservoir fluid viscosity
 Increasing water production throughout the life of a well.

Degree of Consolidation. The ability to maintain open perforation tunnels is closely tied
to how strongly the individual sand grains are bound together. The cementation of a
sandstone is typically a secondary geological process and as a general rule, older sediments
tend to be more consolidated than newer sediments. This indicates that sand production is
normally a problem when producing from shallow, geologically younger Tertiary
sedimentary formations. Young Tertiary formations often have little matrix material
(cementation material) bonding the sand grains together and these formations are
generally referred to as being “poorly consolidated” or “unconsolidated”. A mechanical
characteristic of rock that is related to the degree of consolidation is called “compressive
strength”. Additionally, even well consolidated sandstone formations may be changed by
degrading the matrix material, which would allow sand production. This can be the result
of acid stimulation treatments or high temperature steam flood enhanced recovery
techniques.

Reduction of Pore Pressure. The pressure in the reservoir supports some of the weight of
the overlying rock. As the reservoir pressure is depleted throughout the producing life of a
well, some of the support for the overlying rock is removed. Lowering the reservoir
pressure creates an increasing amount of stress on the formation sand itself. At some point
the formation sand grains may break loose from the matrix, or may be crushed, creating
fines that are produced along with the well fluids. Compaction of the reservoir rock due to a
reduction in pore pressure can result in surface subsidence.
Production Rate. The production of reservoir fluids creates pressure differential and
frictional drag forces that can combine to exceed the formation compressive strength. This
indicates that there is a critical flow rate for most wells below which pressure differential
and frictional drag forces are not great enough to exceed the formation compressive
strength and cause sand production. The critical flow rate of a well may be determined by
slowly increasing the production rate until sand production is detected.
One technique used to minimize the production of sand is to choke the flow rate down
to the critical flow rate where sand production does not occur or has an acceptable level. In
many cases, this flow rate is significantly below the acceptable production rate for the well.

Reservoir Fluid Viscosity. The frictional drag force exerted on the formation sand grains
is created by the flow of reservoir fluid. This frictional drag force is directly related to the
velocity of fluid flow and the viscosity of the reservoir fluid being produced. High reservoir
fluid viscosity will apply a greater frictional drag force to the formation sand grains than
will a reservoir fluid with a low viscosity. The influence of viscous drag causes sand to be
produced from heavy oil reservoirs which contain low gravity, high viscosity oils even at
low flow velocities.

Increasing Water Production. Sand production may increase or begin as water begins to
be produced or as water cut increases. Two possibilities may explain many of these
occurrences.
First, for a typical water-wet sandstone formation, some grain-to-grain
cohesiveness is provided by the surface tension of the connate water surrounding each
sand grain. At the onset of water production, the connate water tends to cohere to the
produced water, resulting in a reduction of the surface tension forces and subsequent
reduction in the grain-to-grain cohesiveness. Water production has been shown to severely
limit the stability of the sand arch around a perforation resulting in the initiation of sand
production.
A second mechanism by which water production affects sand production is
related to the effects of relative permeability. As the water cut increases, the relative
permeability to oil decreases. This results in an increasing pressure differential being
required to produce oil at the same rate. An increase in pressure differential near the
wellbore creates a greater shear force across the formation sand grains. Once again, the
higher stresses can lead to instability of the sand arch around each perforation and
subsequent sand production.

Effects of Sand Production

The effects of sand production are nearly always detrimental to the short and/or
long term productivity of the well.These problems often compound, jeopardizing future
remedial well interventions and long-term wellbore viability. Leaks, production delays, low
hydrocarbon recovery factors or loss of well control may occur if sand erodes wellbore
equipment or surface wellheads, pipes and facilities. In a catastrophic failure, access to
reserves can be lost if costs to sidetrack or drill a new well are prohibitive.
Although some wells routinely experience “manageable” sand production,
these wells are the exception, not the rule. In most cases, attempting to manage the effects
of severe sand production over the life of the well is not an economically attractive or
prudent operating alternative.

Accumulation in Surface Equipment. If the production velocity is great enough to carry

sand up the tubing, the sand may become trapped in the separator, heater treater, or
production pipeline. If a large enough volume of sand becomes trapped in one of these
areas, cleaning will be required to allow for efficient production of the well. To restore
production, the well must be shut-in, the surface equipment opened, and the sand manually
removed. In addition to the clean out cost, the cost of the deferred production must be
considered. Like If a separator is partially filled with sand, the capacity of the separator to
handle oil, gas and water is reduced.

Accumulation Downhole. If the production velocity is not great enough to carry sand to
the surface, the sand may bridge off in the tubing or fall and begin to fill the inside of the
casing. Eventually, the producing interval may be completely covered with sand. In either
case, the production rate will decline until the well becomes "sanded up" and production
ceases. In situations like this, remedial operations are required to clean-out the well and
restore production. clean-out operations may be required on a routine basis, as often as
monthly or even weekly. This will result in lost production and increased well maintenance
cost.
Erosion of Downhole and Surface Equipment. In highly productive wells, fluids flowing
at high velocity and carrying sand can produce excessive erosion of both downhole and
surface equipment leading to frequent maintenance to replace the damaged equipment.
Post equipment failures, a rig assisted workover may be required to repair the damage,
which will add up to the cost of producing the well.

Collapse of the Formation. Large volumes of sand may be carried out of the formation
with produced fluid. If the rate of sand production is great enough and continues for a
sufficient period of time, an empty area or void will develop behind the casing that will
continue to grow larger as more sand is produced. When the void becomes large enough,
the overlying shale or formation sand above the void may collapse into the void due to a
lack of material to provide support. When this collapse occurs, the sand grains rearrange
themselves to create a lower permeability than originally existed. This will be especially
true for a formation sand with a high clay content or wide range of grain sizes. For a
formation sand with a narrow grain size distribution and/or very little clay, the
rearrangement of formation sand will cause a change in permeability that may be probable.
In most cases, continued long term production of formation sand will usually decrease the
well’s productivity and ultimate recovery.
The collapse of the formation is particularly important if the formation material fills or
partially fills the perforation tunnels. Even a small amount of formation material filling the
perforation tunnels will lead to a significant increase in pressure drop across the formation
near the well bore for a given flow rate.
Screenless method of Sand control
Gravel packing or frac packing is widely used in wells all over the world formations
that produce sand as a measure for controlling sand. It’s the most widely accepted method
of sand control. These two methods rely on the particle-bridging characteristics and filter
mechanisms of sand-exclusion screens in open hole or inside casing with annular gravel
packs and also propped hydraulic fractures in the case of frac packs.

In some reservoirs, weakly consolidated, but relatively competent zones can be

completed without installing mechanical screens to keep and—formation grains and
migrating fines, or small rock particles—from entering a wellbore. Screen less completions
use techniques other than conventional gravel packs to prevent perforation failure and
subsequent production of formation solids. When planned and implemented carefully,
these techniques control sand, reduce overall cost and risk, enhance productivity and
improve hydrocarbon recovery.
Screenless completions avoid the limitations and productivity restrictions of
gravel packs and screens. Screenless completions do not restrict wellbores across pay
intervals in many reservoirs. Conventional sand-control methods can not considered as
part of the field-development plan where high productivity is required as Gravel-packed
screens would restrict production rates and the wells could not meet plant production
targets.
Also in screen less completion the full well bore access provides additional flexibility
for subsequent well logging and data gathering, remedial repairs and recompletions,
reservoir monitoring and production management, and control of water or gas inflow.
In addition to simplifying completion operations and reducing installation risks,
this approach decreases cost by eliminating screen assemblies and associated equipment,
complex downhole tools, and the fluid volumes and pumping operations that are required
to place gravel around screens.
The objective of producing sand-free gas at economic rates and reasonable
drawdown pressures can be achieved by multiple means:
• perforating only stable intervals
• perforating one interval per well
• limiting perforated interval length
• using flowback-control additives
• orienting perforations in the PFP (preferred fracture plane)
• forcing fracture closure immediately after treatments
• designing special flowback procedures.
Avoiding sand production
The concept of the critical bottom hole flowing pressure and its dependency on
the hole size (perforation or open hole), hole orientation, reservoir pressure, and
production interval can be used to delay or avoid sand production. Keeping the flowing
pressure above the critical bottomhole pressure will enable some wells to be operated at a
‘sand-free rate’. This sand-free rate can be quantified by sand detectors thus avoiding the
unnecessary conservatism that is inherent in most sand production prediction models.
Reservoir management strategies that maintain reservoir pressure through water
or gas injection are likely to reduce sand production.

Perforating only strong intervals

In case of heterogeneous formation where there are several interval of varying formation
strength. The weaker sand intervals could be left unperforated but allow production from
these intervals to enter via the stronger rocks.
In some cases, this strategy can be made to work (thin discrete weak intervals
surrounded and connected by stronger rock). Where high-permeability zones are likely to
act as thief zones in water flooded reservoirs, there might also be an advantage in leaving
these intervals unperforated.
There are some further disadvantages with selective perforating for sand control:
 The weakest sands are generally the most productive, thus productivity will be
lowered.
 Lowering productivity will increase drawdowns, exacerbating the sand production
potential.
 Turbulence and rate-dependent skin will increase as production is forced through
lower permeability intervals.
 There is no guarantee that the stronger intervals are physically connected to the
more productive intervals.
 Thin, but weak intervals, may be missing from the strength log and therefore
Inadvertently perforated.

Indirect vertical fracturing (IVF)

These methods involve perforating competent shale or other high-strength

intervals adjacent to weaker target pay zones, followed by fracturing treatments designed
to grow vertically into the producing formation.

Initiating hydraulic fractures from a strong, stable zone delays or prevents the
onset of sand production resulting from pressure depletion. The IVF technique requires
detailed formation lithology and in-situ stress data, but is effective when applied
judiciously.
Figure - Early screen less completion in the North Sea. Technique was used by Statoil in the
Gullfaks field to control sand in reservoirs with relatively thick, interbedded sandstones
and shale layers. Hydraulic fracture treatments designed to propagate into a nearby
hydrocarbon bearing Formation is initiated by perforating a shale or stronger zone.
Fracture height and length grow rapidly through the weaker producing interval, with the
initial fracture section in the more competent layer acting to exclude formation sand from
the wellbore.

Tip Screen out Fracture (TSO)

TSO fracture is done to avoid perforation failure to prevent

sand/proppant production. The objective is to create a wide, stable hydraulic fracture
packed with resin-coated proppant (RCP) to reduce sand face drawdown pressure and stop
prop pant flow back as well as produced sand.
 Specialized stimulation designs generate tip screenout (TSO) fractures using
proppant-carrying fluids that leak off early in a treatment. Dehydration of this slurry causes
proppants to pack off at biwing fracture tips, halting length propagation, or extension (top).
Pumping additional slurry causes dynamic fractures to inflate as proppants
pack back toward the well (middle). This promotes grain-to-grain contact after fracture
closure and creates wide, high-conductivity fractures that connect discrete formation
layers and establish linear flow to the well. A TSO treatment causes enough formation
displacement over short intervals to create an annular opening around the wellbore. This
"external pack" becomes packed with proppants and covers perforations that are not
aligned with the PFP. This prevents sand production from nonaligned perforations, and
further reduces near-wellbore pressure drop (bottom).
Screenless methods achieve success only when well-developed TSO fractures with
stable proppant packs cover all perforations and prevent sand from entering the wellbore.
Untreated perforations that are not optimally aligned and directly connect formation and
wellbore leave potential pathways for sand production.

Perforating and Fracturing

For new wells screenless completions begin with optimized perforating practices.
That means optimizing the perforation phase angle and orientation, perforated interval
length, and the size and number of holes, or shot density. Perforations properly aligned with
the PFP minimize unpacked tunnels that can contribute to sand production. For successful
sand control and fracturing treatments, perforating strategies should be designed so that
perforations lie in or near the preferred fracture plane (PFP), or maximum in-situ stress
direction Wireline Oriented Perforating Tool (WOPT) and guns can be used with 1800
phasing to perforate in the direction of maximum formation stress and PFP orientation to
avoid sand production
If stress directions are unknown, (figure-1) a 0° phase angle maximizes the
number of perforations that communicate with a hydraulic. If stress directions are known,
(figure-2) perforating guns with 0° or 180° phasing oriented in the PFP mitigate tunnel
failure and sand influx, both with and without consolidation treatments.
Optimal phasing or oriented perforations also reduce near-wellbore flow-path
restrictions, or tortuosity (figure-3). Tortuosity increases fracture-initiation pressure and
pressure drops across completion intervals that occur during injection of fracturing fluids
and proppants. This increased pressure drop might cause the sand failure.

Figure-1 Stress directions are not known

Figure- Stress directions are known

Figure-3 Fracturing considerations. Hydraulic fracture initiation can occur at various

discrete points on the wellbore radius if perforations are not aligned with the preferred
fracture plane (PFP), or maximum horizontal stress (SH). Developing fractures travel
around casing and cement or turn to align with the PFP. This results in complex near-
wellbore flow paths, or tortuosity, including competing fractures, pinch-point flow
restrictions and fracture wings that curve or have poor alignment with the wellbore (top).
Perforations oriented close to the PFP, or path of least resistance, minimize fracture-
initiation and treating pressures. In full-scale laboratory tests on formation blocks under
triaxial stress, perforations in the PFP resulted in a dominant single-wing fracture with
minimal tortuosity and lower injection pressures (bottom left). In the same test, misaligned
perforations resulted in multiple fracture initiation points (bottom right).

Figure- Schlumberger Wireline-oriented perforating. (WOPT)

The Wireline Oriented Perforating Tool can be run in near-vertical and high-angle wells
with inclination angles from 0.3 to about 60° (left). Developed initially for oriented
fracturing, the WOPT is also used for sand prevention and screenless completions.
 This tool orients standard hollow-steel carrier guns with charges at optimal 0 or
180° phasing in a predetermined direction.

Controlling Proppant Flowback

Propped fractures extend past near-wellbore drilling and completion damage that
reduces permeability to create a conductive, linear flow path to the well. Like produced
sand, proppant flowback is detrimental to well productivity and producing operations, and
also fracture stability. Screenless completions lack internal annular gravel packs and
mechanical screens inside the casing to stop sand from entering the wellbore with
produced fluids. It is imperative that proppants remain inside hydraulic fractures,
especially when formations must be chemically consolidated.

Proppants flowing at high rates erode completion equipment, tubulars, control

valves and wellheads. In low-rate wells, proppants moving back into a wellbore can settle
inside the casing and cause production to cease if productive intervals become completely
covered. Proppant flowback also contributes to formation failure and perforation collapse,
creates pathways for formation sand influx, and reduces production.

Specialized materials, such as resin-coated proppant (RCP) help maintain fracture

stability and integrity. Several types of RCP are available, but only a few are suitable for
screenless completions. Curable RCP interacts with treatment fluids and may set up in the
casing after a premature screenout, making removal difficult. Procured RCP does not
provide sufficient flowback control and should not be used in screenless completions in
any case because the resin functions primarily to increase crush resistance. In general, a
partially cured RCP is preferred because it minimizes fluid interactions and provides
fracture stability while lowering the risk of proppant packing off and setting up inside the
wellbore.