Reducing Well Cost by Gravel Packing in Nonaqueous Fluid

Hecker, M.; Barry, Matthew R.; Martin, Thomas B.

doi:10.2118/90758-ms

Cited by 29 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Gravel packing is then performed with brine [see Ali et al (1999), in a low-inclina-tion well] or a viscous fluid in conjunction with the shunt-tube technique (Ofoh et al 2006;Chambers et al 2000;Powers et al 2006). Although used successfully in some cases, this approach may result in an inability to run the screens to target depth because of shale swelling and/or collapse, as documented by two operators (Powers et al 2006;Hecker et al 2004), or in poor productivity because of mixing of shales with gravel during gravel packing, requiring post-gravel-pack cleanup treatments, as documented by another operator (Ali et al 1999).…”

Section: Review Of the Practices To Datementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A predrilled liner is run in SBM, and the entire wellbore is then displaced to water-based fluids using one of the options discussed in the preceding; screens are then run in hole, and gravel packing is performed with a viscous fluid using the shunt-tube technique Hecker et al 2004) or brine using the ␣/␤ packing technique (Gilchrist et al 1998;Murray et al 2002). This approach ensures screen installation to target, as supported by numerous treatments in West Africa and India, but involves two trips and results in a reduced screen size compared with single-trip approaches Hecker et al 2004;Tolan et al 2009), which may be insignificant in certain environments (e.g., relatively low rig costs, no impact on production because of smaller screen size).…”

Section: Two-trip Predrilled-liner Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This approach ensures screen installation to target, as supported by numerous treatments in West Africa and India, but involves two trips and results in a reduced screen size compared with single-trip approaches Hecker et al 2004;Tolan et al 2009), which may be insignificant in certain environments (e.g., relatively low rig costs, no impact on production because of smaller screen size).…”

Section: Two-trip Predrilled-liner Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Openhole Gravel-Pack Case Histories Using Alternative Fluid Displacement for Synthetic-Based Mud

Ripa¹,

Rossi²,

Staltari³

et al. 2011

SPE Drilling &Amp; Completion

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Openhole gravel packing is one of the popular completion techniques in challenging, high-transmissibility reservoirs. Many of such wells are drilled with synthetic fluids and completed with either a single-or a two-trip technique.In single-trip approaches, the entire wellbore is displaced to water-based fluids before running screens and subsequent gravel packing. Although successful in some cases, this technique has been problematic in reactive-shale environments because of problems in screen installation to target depth, resulting from shale swelling and/or collapse. Such problems led operators to a twotrip approach in which a predrilled liner is installed in syntheticbased mud (SBM), displacements are performed to water-based fluids, and the screens are run in a solids-free (SF) water-basedfluids environment, followed by gravel packing. In recent years, another approach was introduced, in which the displacements to water-based fluids are performed after the screens are installed in conditioned mud and the packer is set, followed by gravel packing with a water-based fluid. Although this approach eliminates the difficulties associated with screen installation as well as allowing a single-trip completion (no predrilled liner), it cannot be used in cases where conditioning is impractical.In this paper, we present case histories where screens were installed after the open hole was displaced to a solids-free SBM and the cased hole was displaced to completion brine, and gravel packing was performed using a water-based carrier fluid. This approach provides a cost-effective alternative to displacement of the entire wellbore to SF-SBM as well as eliminating the risk of screen plugging, and it was implemented successfully on two oil producers in Oyo field. Details of design, execution, and evaluation for drilling and completion stages, as well as well productivity measures, are provided. Review of the Practices to DateMany of the deepwater developments in West Africa use SBMs for both upper hole and reservoir drilling, and almost all of them require some form of sand control, openhole gravel packing being one of the widely used techniques. Gravel packing in SBM environments evolved substantially over the years, with a variety of options that can be categorized on the basis of the type of carrier fluid used for gravel packing [note that the terms SBM and oil-based mud (OBM) are used interchangeably in the context of this paper].Oil-Based Carrier Fluid. In this approach, the screens are necessarily installed with oil-based fl uids in the entire wellbore, where the wellbore fl uids can be any combination of (a) conditioned SBM, (b) fresh SBM (no cuttings), and (c) SF-SBM or oil-based carrier fl uid. The conditioned-SBM approach requires that the mud be passed through shaker-screens of suffi ciently small openings to prevent plugging of sand-control screens during installation and subsequent operations. As such, the type of screens used in the completion (wire-wrap or premium/metal-mesh) and the size of screen openings, and t...

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Section: Review Of the Practices To Datementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Two-trip Predrilled-liner Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Two-trip Predrilled-liner Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Openhole Gravel-Pack Case Histories Using Alternative Fluid Displacement for Synthetic-Based Mud

Ripa¹,

Rossi²,

Staltari³

et al. 2011

SPE Drilling &Amp; Completion

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Non-aqueous fluid (NAF) is the preferred fluid system to optimize drilling of the openhole section, but wellbore stability can be problematic during displacement operations prior to gravel packing. ExxonMobil developed a gravel pack technique, known as NAFPac, which facilitates running Alternate Path gravel pack screens in NAF, gravel packing the well and subsequently displacing the casing to brine, all in one trip (Hecker, 2004). Running the screens in NAF significantly increases the probability of successful screen installation.…”

Section: Nafpac -Running Alternate Path Screens In Nonaqueous Fluid Amentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The initial hardware developments within this initiative included Internal Shunt Alternate Path Technology (ISAPT) screens and the Shunt Zonal Isolation (SZI) internal shunt openhole packer. Together, they build on the success of ExxonMobil's Alternate Path and NAFPac gravel packing technologies (Hecker, 2004) to address extreme length, water or gas breakthrough, or multi-zone gravel pack completion challenges (Barry, 2007;Yeh, 2008). ExxonMobil affiliates collaborated with third party suppliers to design and qualify the new hardware to facilitate zonal isolation, extend gravel pack reach, and simplify rig site operations.…”

Section: Openhole Gravel Packing With Zonal Isolation (Spe 146361)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Advancements in Openhole Completion Technology - Establishing and Sustaining Differentiating Sand Control Completion Performance

et al. 2011

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Openhole completions are often selected as the preferred completion technique to maximize reservoir flow potential and provide reliable, high capacity, low skin completions. In many environments, these completions will also require some form of sand control. To meet development objectives, operators are continually challenged to select, design, and install fit-forpurpose completion strategies to optimize ultimate recovery for these fields. These challenges necessitated the creation of new practices, procedures, and hardware to ensure consistent delivery of reliable wellbores, across the entire organization, to achieve long-term, economic success.ExxonMobil embarked on a multi-year initiative to establish and sustain a disciplined, systematic approach to sand control completion design, job execution, and performance assessment. The effort included the development, qualification, and deployment of selective, enabling completion technologies. Additionally, comprehensive engineering and operational guidelines, as well as, in-depth training were delivered to the worldwide engineering and operations workforce. Most significantly, the initiative is now resulting in effective and rapid transfer of learnings and best practices across the global organization. This comprehensive effort continues to focus on ensuring the right people are deploying the right technology in the right well. This paper will discuss the guiding principles associated with our overall completion practices. It will also describe a number of enabling technologies pioneered by ExxonMobil including: • NAFPac SM , a gravel pack technique that allows the operator to run the gravel pack screens in non-aqueous fluid, gravel pack the well and displace the casing to brine, all in one trip • MazeFlo™, a self healing, redundant sand screen • Internal Shunt Alternate Path Technology (ISAPT) screens with openhole shunted packers, a completion technique that enables true and selective zonal isolation in openhole gravel pack applications

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Effective Gravel Pack Technique for Well Completion

Macdonald,

Adimie

2024

PSE

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Sand production occurs when oil and gas is produced alongside reservoir formations at some point in the productive lifecycle of a well, understanding why reservoir produces sand is a crucial step towards managing sand production, the objective of this research is to improve the quality of produced fluid (oil/gas) for easy separation, the study method of this research work was basically a laboratory based sieve analysis of formation sand of a well in consideration, this is designed to achieve the most effective gravel pack grain size to be used, from the result analyzed with careful interpretations as presented, the Niger Delta Well-X formation comprise grain sizes of 0.0788” – 0.0025” range as captured from the available set of sieves used, the concentration of percentage retain falls within grain size 0.0197” – 0.007 1” with 0.0197” having about 41.4% retain by weight with the total grain weight of 737grams to stand at 305grams, while grain size 0.0118” had a percentage retained of 25.5% having a weight of 188grams and 0.0071” had a percentage retain of 12.9% with a weight of 95% respectively, keeping all other size to be 20.1%, for the sorting, 9.4 was calculated from the analysis of this research which makes the gravel pack to be well sorted. Therefore, permeability and plugging challenges are not a problem. The range of gravel size recommended for the gravel pack was kept at a minimum of 0.0727” and a maximum of 0.1639”. A screen size of 55 gauges was calculated to enable effective gravel pack placement operation, which is practical solution to sand production for the well investigated if properly managed.

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Reducing Well Cost by Gravel Packing in Nonaqueous Fluid

Cited by 29 publications

References 4 publications

Openhole Gravel-Pack Case Histories Using Alternative Fluid Displacement for Synthetic-Based Mud

Openhole Gravel-Pack Case Histories Using Alternative Fluid Displacement for Synthetic-Based Mud

Advancements in Openhole Completion Technology - Establishing and Sustaining Differentiating Sand Control Completion Performance

Effective Gravel Pack Technique for Well Completion

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