The jamming mechanism of sand control screen for the montmorillonite inflation with the water

Abstract

In the process of well completion with mechanical screen to control sand, once the water content of the reservoir increased, the montmorillonite in clay minerals would swell which combined with formation sand has an obvious effect on the plugging of screen pipe in production string. According to the prediction of water production of reservoir, shale expansion instrument was used to establish the relationship between the different water content and swelling properties of montmorillonites and combined with the clogging test of screen under different water content to evaluate the blocking effect of montmorillonite under different water content on the clogging of screen in the process of sand control. It can be found in the experiment that: (1) If the reservoir products water, the expansion height of two kinds of montmorillonites is similar when the water content of oil is less than 10% or more than 20%, the expansion height of montmorillonites is large of which expansion rate can reach to 188% when the water content is between 10 and 20%. (2) Through the simulation experiment of sand control, when the water content is 10 and 30%, the screen blocking is the fastest, and the productivity index per meter is the lowest, the blockage rate is increased by nearly three times when the water content of oil is 0. (3) The influence of concentration ratio of oil and water on the productivity index per meter of metal mesh screen is larger than the swelling of montmorillonites which is mainly reflected in the water content is close to 20-30%. The degree and speed of screen blocking can be reduced by reducing the water content of produced fluid.

Numerical simulations of sand‐screen performance in unconsolidated prepacked gravel screen

“…Gravel packing sand control methods have shown effectiveness in managing sand, particularly in reservoirs with a high montmorillonite content. 8,9 However, their use can be restricted due to their complex operational process, high risk, and elevated costs. 10 Consequently, mechanical screens have become one of the most extensively utilized downhole sand control tools in the oil industry.…”

“…This difference has prompted some researchers to explore the use of full-scale testing apparatus. 8,21,[27][28][29] However, conducting a full-scale experiment can be quite costly and time consuming. Consequently, such tests are used less frequently due to these factors.…”

“…Gravel packing sand control methods have shown effectiveness in managing sand, particularly in reservoirs with a high montmorillonite content 8,9 . However, their use can be restricted due to their complex operational process, high risk, and elevated costs 10 .…”

“…However, the actual flow near the screen should be radial, creating a discrepancy between testing conditions and real‐world applications. This difference has prompted some researchers to explore the use of full‐scale testing apparatus 8,21,27–29 . However, conducting a full‐scale experiment can be quite costly and time consuming.…”

The potential of using micro-sized crosslinked polymer gel to remediate water leakage in cement sheaths

“…However, these kinds of sealing materials still have some problems associated with their swelling chemical additives and other concerns related to their mechanical and thermal stability. Crosslinked polyacrylamide polymer gels are another kind of sealant material that have been used in many oil field applications due to their high injectivity and ability to mitigate excessive water migration; controlling the water production increases the oil recovery (Feng et al 2012;Deng et al 2018;Sadati and Sahraei 2019). Polymer gel could be activated by temperature, pressure, a change in the water salinity, and a change in the pH (Vasquez and Santin 2015;Imqam et al 2015a, b), and the strength of the gel can be increased by implementing nanomaterials (Tongwa and Baojun 2015).…”