Screen selection

SPE President Giovanni Paccaloni's column in the February 2005 Journal of Petroleum Technology described the central role of young professionals in the future development of the oil and gas industry. In his March column, he stressed the "urgent priority for public energy education." To bridge the wide gap between the students and the industry, two members of the Aberdeen ELP voluntarily agreed to provide in-house seminars on April 28 and 29 at the university. The seminars featured Gillian King of Weatherford speaking on "Expandable Sand Screens" and Imona Adebo of Chevron Corp. speaking on "Production Management." An industrial visit was also organized to Shell's Goldeneye gas terminal at St. Fergus on May 3. The Student President of the Robert Gordon U. SPE Chapter, Olumakinde Ilesanmi, said the goal of the chapter had always been to foster relationships between its members and the industry.

Several SPE students from Robert Gordon U. recently took part in a tour of the Weatherford Completions and Production Facility in Dyce, Aberdeen. Those who attended are all studying various oil and gas engineering disciplines. To show students some of the practical aspects of theoretical teachings, Weatherford offered insight into completion practices, especially in sand control. Students spent most of the day at the facility with Gillian King, Product Line Champion in Sand Control Systems, who gave an introduction to the company, its various divisions, and its global operations. The tour focused on Weatherford's contribution to the industry in sand control, primarily its expandable sand screen and the technology behind it.

Operators continue to look to prolific high-permeability, clastic reservoirs in basins around the world. The use of high-deviation and horizontal well trajectories in these fields improves productivity but increases the challenges of sand control. Multilayered metal-mesh screens (MMSs) are widely used as standalone screens for sand control in unconsolidated formations. It is often found that screens with the same filter-layer nominal rating perform differently. This paper presents a combined experimental and numerical-modeling study on sand-screen performance.

This paper presents a combined experimental and numerical-modeling study on sand-screen performance. The objective is to develop an improved methodology for optimal sand-screen-aperture selection by addressing some of the limitations present in existing sand-retention tests. For engineering design teams, the market downturn is an opportunity to review practices and learn from others who have used hard times to reshape processes through simulation while cutting development time and costs.

Content of PetroWiki is intended for personal use only and to supplement, not replace, engineering judgment. SPE disclaims any and all liability for your use of such content. A completion that uses a screen without a gravel pack, allowing the formation to cave in around the screen.

Content of PetroWiki is intended for personal use only and to supplement, not replace, engineering judgment. SPE disclaims any and all liability for your use of such content.

Content of PetroWiki is intended for personal use only and to supplement, not replace, engineering judgment. SPE disclaims any and all liability for your use of such content. A downhole screen designed to stop sand production before the flow enters the pump or tubing.

Content of PetroWiki is intended for personal use only and to supplement, not replace, engineering judgment. SPE disclaims any and all liability for your use of such content. A sand restraining device that is a mesh or wire wrapped screen wound over a base pipe with holes.

Content of PetroWiki is intended for personal use only and to supplement, not replace, engineering judgment. SPE disclaims any and all liability for your use of such content. A sand control screen with a shaped wire wound to achieve a set opening size (within tolerance) around a perforated base pipe.

The slotted liner or screen is the mechanical device that contains the gravel-pack sand in an annular ring between it and the casing wall or open hole. Figure 1 shows a schematic of the function of a slotted liner or screen in an openhole gravel pack. Slotted liners are made from tubulars by saw-cutting slot configurations, as shown in Figure 1. Slot widths are often referred to in terms of gauge. Slot or screen gauge is simply the width of the opening in inches multiplied by 1,000.