Successful Installation of Stand Alone Sand Screen in more than 200 Wells—The Importance of Screen Selection Process and Fluid Qualification

Abstract

fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractEffective sand control and high well productivity throughout the life of the well have been defined as success criteria for the use of Stand Alone Screen as sand control strategy. This paper describes the strategy to meet these success criteria and illustrates the experience in Hydro Oil & Energy to date.A recommended practice for the selection of sand control has been established based on a comprehensive screen selection and fluid qualification process. The method includes testing and ranking of different screen designs based on sand retention and plugging properties for selected samples of reservoir sand. The screen design with the overall best performance is recommended for field application.In addition, requirements for drilling and completion fluids have been defined. Control of particle size and particle amount in the completion fluid has been identified as the most important criteria.Stand Alone Screen as sand control strategy have been successfully utilized for approximately 230 completions based on the presented methodology. For several of these wells, the established selection criteria published in the literature, recommended other sand control techniques to that used, e.g. open hole gravel pack. Based on Hydro Oil & Energy 's field experience the common practice for sand control selection applied within the industry today might be too cautious. It is concluded that Stand Alone Screen as completion method can have wider application than recognized so far.

Numerical Simulations of Screen Performance in Standalone Screen Applications for Sand Control

“…Their results indicated that sand retention is primarily influenced by the largest particles (d 5 , and d 10 ) in a sand size distribution and that this relationship is not influenced much by the percentage of sub-325 US mesh particles, uniformity and sorting coefficients. Mathisen et al (2007) refined the laboratory procedure developed by Ballard et al (1999) and established a recommended practice for the selection of sand control screens for standalone applications. Mathisen et al (2007) concluded that standalone screens as a completion method can have a wider application than previously suggested (Tiffin et al, 1998;Bennett et al, 2000).…”

“…Mathisen et al (2007) refined the laboratory procedure developed by Ballard et al (1999) and established a recommended practice for the selection of sand control screens for standalone applications. Mathisen et al (2007) concluded that standalone screens as a completion method can have a wider application than previously suggested (Tiffin et al, 1998;Bennett et al, 2000). Underdown et al (1999) developed a testing protocol to determine the "sand control efficiency" and "plugging" tendency of sand control screens and proposed a procedure known as the screen efficiency (SE) test that shows the relationship between the normalized sand control characteristics (i.e., "the sand control factor") of the screen and the normalized length of time it takes a screen to "plug" under a certain set of conditions (i.e., "the performance factor").…”

“…Sizing of sand control media for oilfield applications has been the subject of many laboratory studies dating back to the early 1900's (Coberly, 1937;Suman et al, 1985;Markestad et al, 1996;Tiffin et al, 1998;Malbrel et al, 1999;Ballard et al, 1999;Underdown et al, 1999;Gillespie et al, 2000;Hodge et al, 2002;Ballard and Beare, 2003;Constien and Skidmore, 2006;Williams et al, 2006;Ballard and Beare, 2006;Mathisen et al, 2007;Underdown and Hopkins, 2008). Coberly (1937) proposed guidelines for sizing slot openings and stated that the upper limit of the slot width on which a stable bridge can be formed is twice the diameter of the grain size at the ten percentile, i.e., w < 2d 10 .…”

Numerical Simulations of Sand-Screen Performance in Standalone Applications

“…Sizing of sand-control media for oilfi eld applications has been the subject of many laboratory studies dating back to the early 1900s (Coberly 1937;Suman et al 1985;Markestad et al 1996;Tiffi n et al 1998;Malbrel et al 1999;Ballard et al 1999;Underdown et al 1999;Gillespie et al 2000;Hodge et al 2002;Ballard and Beare 2003;Constien and Skidmore 2006;Williams et al 2006;Ballard and Beare 2006;Mathisen et al 2007;Underdown and Hopkins 2008). Chanpura et al (2010) provide a thorough review of the past work on screen selection for SAS applications.…”

Current State of the Premium Screen Industry: Buyer Beware, Methodical Testing and Qualification Shows You Don't Always Get What You Paid For

“…There is significant industry experience and a wide range of publications that reference plugging and sand-retention testing for selection of sand screens (Hodge et al 2002;Mathisen et al 2007;Ballard and Beare 2003;Ballard and Beare 2006). However, there is currently no recognized industry standard to extend this type of small-scale media qualification testing to include full-joint screen testing (FJST) to qualify the final manufactured product's performance specifications.…”