Sand Control Screen Erosion – When Are You at Risk?

Abstract

For Stand Alone Screen (SAS) completions in open hole oil/gas wells, the sand control screen must retain the formation sand effectively, and provide a conduit for fluids to flow into a producing well. The screen's performance and service life depends on the well's operating conditions. A failure may occur while completing the well, or at some time during the well's operating life. The root cause of the screen failure is often difficult to determine with absolute accuracy. Often, it is determined that screen failure occurs due to a combination of plugging and erosion resulting in the loss of sand control. A comprehensive test program was undertaken over a two year period to evaluate erosion of different screen types for open hole completions. Completions were simulated for wire wrap and metal mesh sand screens commonly used in open hole completions. Configurations of each screen type were installed in a test fixture, and several tests were conducted at different velocities and sand concentrations. The sand was sized to pass through the screen with minimal plugging, which would simulate fines production over time in a producing well. The specific wear rates and per cent of rate loss were determined for each test. Micro photos were used in the analysis of the wear patterns, along with pre and post test measurements of the wire wrap slots or metal mesh pore sizes. This paper will describe the test methods used, the test results and lessons learned, and will describe a model that can be used to predict a screen's service life based on a given set of well conditions in a SAS open hole completion. Introduction Sand screens are often used to provide sand control in open hole completions. A common completion method is a stand alone screen (SAS) where by the screen aperture is sized to directly retain the formation sand. A typical completion is shown in Figure 1.

Erosion of sand screens by solid particles: a review of experimental investigations

“…Other studies such as those conducted by Greene and Moen (2012) and Regulacion and Shahreyar (2011) found that annular flow plays an essential role in the erosion and failure of sand screens in horizontal gas wells. However, Gillespie et al (2009) attributed early life failures of the screen to severe plugging with solids in a drilling fluid, which could have occurred during installation. Therefore, if a well is made operational, the increased flow could cause highly localized entrance velocities towards the screen.…”

“…During sand screen erosion experiments, flow velocity is changed such that the effect of impact velocity can be quantified and analysed. For instance, the following studies considered changing the velocity during experiments, Deng et al (2019a), Kanesan et al (2019), Kumar et al (2018), Procyk et al (2015), Gillespie et al (2009), Liu et al (2009), Cameron and Jones (2007) and Hamid and Ali (1997). Conversely, few studies considered constant flow velocity during experiments, such as McKeon et al (2017) and Charles and Fipke (2017).…”

“…In this section, studies on sand screen erosion will be reviewed with regards to velocity, in terms of velocity ranges during experiments, the mathematical relationship type between erosion and velocity, particle velocity relation with carrier fluid velocity, and fluid/particle velocity correction. Regarding the studies which considered the effect of changing the velocity, their experiments have been conducted under a wide range of velocities, from low velocities (such as Cameron and Jones (2007), Gillespie et al (2009) and Procyk et al (2015)) to high velocities of up to 190 m/s (such as the experiment conducted by Kumar et al (2018)). Kumar et al (2018) justified that higher air velocity (approximately 10 times) compared to that typically observed in the field had to be chosen such that the test duration is reduced to a few hours.…”

“…These findings highlight the importance of investigating the velocity effects on erosion under different types of fluids and variable sand concentrations. Some studies considered the effect of velocity on erosion under different carrying fluid types such as the study conducted by Gillespie et al (2009). They investigated the erosion of two metal mesh screens (MMS), having openings sizes of 135 and 300 micron, where water and glycol (50 cp) were used as carriers fluids.…”

“…To study the effect of sand concentration, some studies considered changing it during experiments, such as Deng et al (2019a), Kumar et al (2018), Zamberi et al (2014), and Hamid and Ali (1997). Although particles concentration is an important factor and naturally changes in reality from field observations, some studies were conducted for a particular constant concentration, such as Deng et al (2019a), Kanesan et al (2019), McKeon et al (2017, Charles and Fipke (2017), Procyk et al (2015), Gillespie et al (2009), and Cameron and Jones (2007). The data of Procyk et al (2015) have been plotted to show the effect of particle concentration at a constant flow velocity, as shown in Fig.…”