You must log in to edit PetroWiki. 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.

You must log in to edit PetroWiki. 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.

You must log in to edit PetroWiki. 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.

You must log in to edit PetroWiki. 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.

Summary

Previous studies showed that different parameters influence the plugging of completion tools. These parameters include rock mineralogy, reservoir-fluid properties, and type of completion tools. Although different methods have been used for unplugging these tools, there is still debate regarding the performance of these methods on damage removal. In this study, we assessed the performance of high-power shock waves generated from an electrohydraulic-stimulation (EHS) tool on cleaning completion tools plugged during oil production. These devices were extracted from different wells in Canada, Europe, and the US. First, we quantified the extent of cleaning for the plugged slotted liners using the EHS tool at the laboratory scale. Next, we analyzed the mineral composition of the plugging materials removed after the treatment by conducting scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS), colorimetric, and dry-combustion analyses. Finally, we reviewed the pulsing-stimulation-treatment results applied to several field case studies. The results of unplugging slotted liners at the laboratory scale showed that up to 28.5% of the plugged slots are cleaned after 120 pulses of shock waves. The mineral-characterization results showed that the main plugging materials are calcite, silicates, and iron-based components (corrosion products). The cleaning performance (CP) of the EHS tool increases by increasing the number of pulses and the output energy (OE) applied to the tool. The CP parameter is high at (i) high concentrations of carbonates, barium (Ba)-based components, and organic matter, and (ii) low concentrations of corrosion products and sulfates. The results of field case studies showed that the cleaning of the EHS tool is not limited to the sand-control devices and it can clean other tools that are less accessible for other techniques, such as subsurface safety valves. This paper provides a better understanding of the performance of shock waves on damage removal from plugged completion tools. The results could open new insight into the applications of shock waves for cleaning the completion tools.

In mature basins, sand issues can account for up to 10% of all shut-in wells either due to failure of the existing downhole sand control or onset of sand production caused by pressure depletion and/or water production. Existing remedial methodology to address sand management include allowing sand production and managing it at surface, managing production rate to minimise solids production, running an insert sand screen, applying consolidation treatment or performing a remedial gravel pack. All of these methods vary in complexity, cost, risk, longevity and effectiveness and have associated weaknesses often resulting in reduced production or in extreme cases, loss of surface containment due to erosion.

A novel remedial solution was developed to enable compliant sand free production to be restored effectively and efficiently and to be compatible with thru-tubing operations, including live well deployment and single trip sand clean out. This solution includes a new filtration mechanism using an Open Cell Matrix Polymer (OCMP) filter run compressed within a sleeve to allow passage through tight restrictions which then decompresses to be conformant with a significantly larger inner diameter (ID) of the area requiring sand control when the sleeve is removed. The system has additional functionality that allows sand in the wellbore to be cleaned out in the same trip. The inclusion of both new deployment and filtration mechanisms meant that existing testing and filtration sizing criteria could not be applied.

This paper describes the unique qualification program and development of new testing practices that were undertaken to qualify the solution and enable the operating envelope of this technology to be defined.

The Dvalin gas field is located in the Norwegian sea on NCS and is operated by Wintershall DEA Norge. It is supported by two independent reservoir structures, Dvalin East and Dvalin West. The field was explored through wells 14S and 15S in 2010 and 2012, respectively. The field is characterized by dry gas, high CO2, high temperature (160 °C) and high pressure (SIWHP 620 bar). The targeted Garn sandstone has good reservoir quality, but with a high permeability contrast.

The field development was sanctioned in 2016 and calls for a 4 well solution through a centrally located subsea template, producing gas back to the host platform Heidrun TLP 15 km away. Water depth at location is 380 m and targeted reservoirs are at 4140 m MSL (East) and 4240 m MSL (West).

Production plateau rates are estimated to be approximately 106 MMscf/D (3 million std m³/d) per well where thin high-permeability zones within the Garn formation are expected to dominate the inflow. The lateral facies development is thought to be relatively homogenous throughout the field, thus S-shape wells falling off to vertical through the reservoir will ensure effective drainage.

Sand failure is expected after short time of production and would increase the risk of erosion causing severe damage to well jewelry and production facilities. It has been decided to integrate sand screens as a means of downhole sand control as part of the primary lower completion design. The sand screens will offer sand control, erosion resistance, hot spotting resistance as well as robustness towards a full hole collapse during reservoir pressure depletion. As the subsea completions are carried out from a mobile drilling unit in harsh environments, protection of the sand control filter media during installation is of utmost importance.

This paper will describe the selection process of sand control and qualification steps carried out to use ceramic screens as the stand-alone screen solution for successful deployment and integrity for the Dvalin field development

Formation sand production is one of the major production challenges in most of the mature fields in Malaysia. Often, failure in primary sand control equipment requires the operators to adopt through-tubing sand screens as a remedial sand control. Current remedial sand control techniques utilizing metallic through tubing sand screens experience rapid wear, forcing the operator to control sand production by beaning down wells and thereby managing sand production at surface, in worst cases wells have to be shut-in. More robust technologies replacing conventional metallic screens are required. For these applications, alternative technology with ceramic sand screens have been deployed to enable higher productivity and offer enhanced resistance against erosion.

Ceramic sand screens passed through a technical qualification process at Petronas and deployed in field applications both in oil and gas producers for through tubing interventions. To date 30 well interventions have been performed in various Petronas assets of Offshore East Malaysia with mixed results. Eight screen failures were observed with longevity ranging from 2.5 days to 15 months of production after installation. On average, ceramic sand screens greatly enhanced productivity return through longer performance than the conventional through tubing metallic screens from previous deployments. However, it was both the intent of product provider and Petronas to further improve Through Tubing Ceramic Sand Screen (TTCSS) performance based on the lessons learned from these failures.

The TTCSS failures were first presented in the paper: SPE 196479 MS published at SPE APOGCE October 2019, Bali, Indonesia which which focused on the failures of these first generation TTCSS screen designs.

This paper describes in more detail the value driven process and collaboration steps between 3M and Petronas to improve TTCSS field performance as a methodology to increase incremental field production to further increase longevity of downhole sand control in these applications. To enable this goal, a root cause analysis process entailed involving tear down investigation, hypothesis of failure characteristics, application review and investigation analysis with tools such as CFD and laboratory testing resulting in the implementation of ceramic sand screen design enhancements to improve performance in further Petronas deployments.

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.