www.covenantuniversity.edu.

ng

Raising a new Generation of Leaders

1. SAND CONTROL
2. INTRODUCTION TO COILED TUBING

Damilola V. Aina
 OBJECTIVE
• To get the basic knowledge in order to
understand the gist of a sand control discussion.
• To have a grasp on the fundamentals of coiled
tubing.

2
WHAT IS THIS SAND?

3
Where do we find sand control?

4
 INTRODUCTION
• The production of formation sand into a well is one of the
oldest problems plaguing the oil and gas industry because of
its adverse effects on well productivity and equipment.
• Sand control is common to shallow, geologically young
formations that have little or no cementation to hold the
individual sand grains together.
• Produced sand has no economic value; it not only plug wells
but also erode equipment and settle in surface vessels.
• Controlling formation sand is costly and it involves either
slowing the production rate or using gravel-packing or sand
consolidation techniques.

5
SAND CONTROL
• Sand production is a common problem in unconsolidated rocks.
• Occurs when production induced stress exceeds rock strength.
• Sand production is a compressive failure unlike fracturing.
• Sand control decisions are taken after a careful study of the strength of
the formation shows that there is potential for sand failure during
production.
• Based on sand control type completions can be classified:
 Open hole completions (No sand control)
 Cemented with open perforations (No sand control)
 Un-cemented liner/screen (1st level sand control).
 Cemented with perforations and sand control (E.g. Gravel pack, Frac
Pack, Chemical consolidation)
6
 SAND CONTROL
• Sand control refers to managing/minimizing
sand and fine production during petroleum
production.
• Sand and fine produced with oil and gas can
cause erosion and wear of production facilities/
equipments, resulting in production downtime,
expensive repairs, and potentially loss of
containment (serious safety risk).
7
 KEEP IN MIND!
• Solid production ≠ fine production
 Fines free to move in reservoir are free to move in
sand control equipment (gravel, screen, …)
 Sand Control business = control the overburden-
bearing solids
• “Zero solid production” does not exist.

8
 Predicting Sand Production?
• The completion engineer needs to know the
conditions under which a well will produce
sand.
• There are a number of analytical techniques
and guidelines to assist in determining if sand
control is necessary, but no technique has
proven to be universally acceptable or
completely accurate
9
 Predicting Sand Production?...
• Until better prediction techniques are
available, the best way of determining the need
for sand control in a particular well is to
perform an extended production test with a
conventional completion and observe whether
sand production occurs.

10
 Predicting Sand Production?...
1. Sand flow test
This involves sand production being detected
during a DST.
Drill stem testing is an oil and gas exploration
procedure to isolate, stimulate and flow a
downhole formation to determine the fluids
present and the rate at which they can be
produced.
11
 Predicting Sand Production?...
2. Formation Strength
This procedure to consider whether sand control is
required is to determine the hardness of the
formation rock (i.e., the rock’s compressive strength).
Because the rock’s compressive strength has the
same units as the pressure difference between the
reservoir and the well (the drawdown), the two
parameters can be directly compared, and drawdown
limits for specific wells can be determined.

12
 Predicting Sand Production?...
3. Sonic log
The sonic log records the time required for sound waves
to travel through the formation, usually in microseconds.
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.

13
 Predicting Sand Production?...
4. Porosity
The porosity of a formation can be used as a
guideline as to whether sand control is needed. If
φ>30%, the probability of the need for sand
control is high because of the lack of
cementation.
Porosity information can be derived from well
logs or laboratory core analysis.
14
 Predicting Sand Production?...
5. Finite Element Analysis
This is the most sophisticated approach to predicting sand
production.
It involves the use of geo-mechanical numerical models
developed to analyze fluid flow through the reservoir in
relation to the formation strength.
This method is good from the viewpoint of comparing one
interval with another; however, the absolute values
calculated may not represent actual formation behavior.

15
 CAUSES OF SAND PRODUCTION
The following list summarizes many of the factors that
influence the tendency of a well to produce sand:
1. Geographic and geologic factors/Degree of
consolidation
2. Production rate
3. Reduction of pore pressure
4. Reservoir fluid viscosity
5. Increasing water production
6. Thermal effects

16
 Geographic and geologic factors/Degree of
consolidation
• Sand production is most common in Tertiary Age sand reservoirs.
• Because these reservoirs are geologically young and are usually
located at relatively shallow depths, they are no more than
moderately consolidated.
• A mechanical characteristic of rock that is related to the degree of
consolidation is called “compressive strength”. This shows how
strong the individual sand grains are bound together.
• Poorly consolidated sandstone formations usually have a
compressive strength that is less than 1,000psi. This indicates that
sand production is normally a problem when producing from poorly
consolidated sandstone.

17
 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.

18
 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.

19
 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.

20
 Increasing Water Production
• Sand production may increase or begin as water begins
to be produced or as water cut increases.
• 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.

21
 Thermal effects
• Thermal effects can also destroy intergranular
bonds and influence sand production.
• The effects of high temperature associated with
steam injection and combustion oil recovery
projects have demonstrated that many wells
experience high sand production not
previously encountered in these operations.
22
 CONSEQUENCES OF SAND PRODUCTION
• Several operational problems can arise if a well produces sand.
• Probably the least severe problems are solved simply by periodic
removal of sand from such surface facilities as flowlines, manifolds
and separators. The following are some of the more severe
problems;
1. Erosion in surface equipment
2. Accumulation in surface equipment
3. Tubular damage
4. Productivity loss
5. Collapse of formation
6. Accumulation down hole

23
Erosion in surface equipment
• In highly productive wells, fluids
flowing at high velocity and
carrying sand can produce
excessive erosion of surface
equipment leading to frequent
maintenance to replace the
damaged equipment.

Figure 1: Effects of sand production on surface equipment

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 and
production pipeline.

Figure 2: Sand accumulated in a separator

 Tubular damage
• Casing failure may accompany the production of
formation sand in the producing interval, meaning
the loss of a well.
• As sand is produced, slumping of the overlying
casing-bearing formations can subject the entire
casing string to abnormal loads. Such loads can
lead to severe buckling when the lateral restraint
provided by the surrounding sand is lost during
sand production.
26
 Productivity loss
• Productivity is lost when a sand bridge forms in
the production tubulars. This sanded-up
conditions occurs when the fluid velocity is
sufficient to suspend the produced sand
completely and flow it from the well.
• In settling out of the produced fluids, sand can
then fill the production string and block the
flow.
27
 Collapse of 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.
28
Accumulation down hole
• 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. Figure 3: Accumulation of sand downhole
Problems of sand production
AREA PROBLEM EFFECT
Reservoir Wellbore Fill Restricted access to production interval
Loss of productivity
Loss of reserves
Subsurface Sand Fouling Malfunction/damage of DHSV
Equipment Difficult wireline operations
Erosion Frequent equipment failure
Frequent equipment replacement
Surface Sand Accumulation Malfunction of control equipment
Installations Loss of capacity
Unscheduled shut-downs
Deferred production
Sand separation and disposal
Erosion Frequent equipment failure
Frequent equipment replacement

30
Sand Control Techniques
Sand control methods may be classified as
mechanical and chemical.
Mechanical methods of sand control prevent sand
production by stopping the formation with liners,
screens or gravel packs. Larger formation sand
grains are stopped, and they in turn stop smaller
formation sand grains.
Chemical control methods involve in injecting
consolidating materials like resins into the
formation to cement the sand grains.
31
 Resin Injection
• This is simply considered as artificial consolidation of sand.
• It involves injection of plastic resins, which are attracted to the
formation sand grains. The resin hardens and forms a
consolidated mass, binding the sand grains together at their
contact points.
• If successful, the increase in formation compressive strength
will be sufficient to withstand the drag forces while producing
at the desired rates.
• Types of resins include: epoxies, furans (including
furan/phenolic blends), and pure phenolic.

32
 Resin Injection
Properties of resins:
• Viscosity of resin not excessive.
• Resin must wet the formation solids
• Resin possess sufficient tensile and compressive strength
• Polymer must be chemically inert
Mechanism:
• Pre flush diesel oil which creates wettability and remove undesired
material in the zone
• Placement of resin by isolating the interval
• Over flush of high concentrated resin injected to control the
permeability and compressive strength

33
 Resin Injection
Advantages:
• Leaves wellbore open
• Relatively low cost
• Eliminates necessity for screens and liners
Disadvantages:
• Limited zone height
• Longevity limited
• Temperature sensitivity <250°F
• Very difficult to evenly apply
• Reduces permeability by10%-60%
34
 Gravel Packing
• Gravel pack has been used in industry
since 1930s; today it’s the most widely
used on sand control treatment. Gravel
packing account for three quarters of the
sand control treatments.
• In gravel-pack operations, a metal screen
is placed in the wellbore and the
surrounding annulus is packed with
prepared gravel of a size designed to
prevent the passage of formation sand.
• Schematics of an open hole and cased
hole gravel pack are shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Gravel Packing in open and cased holes
 Gravel Packing
• Gravel packing relies on the bridging of formation sand against
larger sand with the larger sand positively retained by a slotted liner
or screen.
• The larger sand (referred to as gravel pack sand or simply, gravel) is
sized to be about 5 to 6 times larger than the formation sand.
• Gravel packing creates a permeable downhole filter that will allow
the production of the formation fluids but restrict the entry and
production of formation sand.
• Because the gravel is tightly packed between the formation and the
screen, the bridges formed are stable, which prevents shifting and
resorting of the formation sand.

36
 Gravel Packing
• Advantages of open hole gravel packs
• Low drawdown and high productivity
• Excellent longevity
• No casing or perforating expense
• Disadvantages of open hole gravel packs
• Sometimes difficult to exclude undesirable fluids such as
water and/or gas
• Not easily performed in shale the erode or slough when brine
is pumped past them.
• Requires special fluids for drilling the open hole section

37
 FRAC-PACKING
• Fracturing and gravel packing is sometimes
called Frac-packing. In this design, the gravel-
pack screen would act as a barrier to prevent
proppant flow back. Backed by the support of
the gravel-pack, the proppant interacts with the
formation, creating an effective barrier that
prevents sand production and increases
effective wellbore radius.
38
INTRODUCTION TO COILED
TUBING

39
 INTRODUCTION TO COILED TUBING
 Introduction
 What is Coiled Tubing?
 Key elements of a CT unit
 Coiled Tubing and Associated Equipment
 Applications of the Coiled Tubing
 Advantages and Disadvantages

40
 INTRODUCTION
• Well intervention services are operations carried out
on an oil or gas well during or towards the end of its
productive life that manages the production of the
well. There are different well intervention
equipments or methods such as bull heading, slick-
line, wire-line, coiled tubing, etc.

41
 What is coiled tubing?
 It refers to a continuous length of a small diameter steel pipe
that can be spooled on a reel for transport, then deployed into
a wellbore for the placement of fluids or manipulation of tools
during work over and well-intervention operations.
 Tubing diameter normally ranges from 0.75 in. to 4 in.,
and single reel tubing lengths in excess of 30,000 ft.
have been commercially manufactured.
 Common CT steels have yield strengths ranging from
55,000 psi to 120,000 psi

42
 KEY ELEMENTS OF A CT UNIT

• The unit consists of four basic

elements:
– Reel - for storage and transport of
the CT
– Injector Head - to provide the surface
drive force to run and retrieve the CT
– Control Cabin - from which the
equipment operator monitors and
controls the CT
– Power Pack - to generate hydraulic
and pneumatic power required to
operate the CT unit
Figure 5: Trailer mounted CT unit and crane
Coiled Tubing and Associated Equipment

44
 WELL CONTROL EQUIPMENT
• Figure 7 shows typical well control
equipment for CT operations,
consisting of a BOP topped with a
stripper (high pressure CT units have
two strippers and additional BOP
components).
• Each component must be compatible
with any corrosive fluids that might be
produced from the well or introduced
as part of the CT operation.

Figure 7 shows a complete stackup of well control

equipment for CT operations at WHP up to 15,000 psi.
Various Offshore CT operating environments

CT operations from a lift boat

CT operations from a Barge

CT operations on an Offshore Platform

46
Applications of the coiled Tubing
• CT can be used as an effective tool for
numerous pipeline applications, including:
 Transportation of inspection tools
 Removing organic deposits and hydrate plugs
 Removing sand or fill
 Placing a patch or liner to repair minor leaks
 Setting temporary plugs
47
 Advantages
The advantages of Coiled Tubing compared to other work
over operations are as follows:
 Ability to pump and apply pressure
 The ability to carry out operations in a live well
 Saves time and cost that would have been spent
removing the production tubing.
 Quicker trip times.
 Fewer crew members

48
 Disadvantages
 Inability to rotate
 Possibility of getting stuck and involving some costs
to remove it(either drilling or fishing)
 Depth correlation( due to buckling)

49