Predicting whether a well will produce fluids without producing sand has been the goal of many completion engineers and research projects. There are a number of analytical techniques and guidelines to assist in determining ifsand control is necessary, but no technique has proven to be universally acceptable or completely accurate. In some geographic regions, guidelines and rules of thumb apply that have little validity in other areas of the world. Predicting whether a formation will or will not produce sand is not an exact science, and more refinement is needed. Until better prediction techniques are available, the best way of determining the need for sand control in a particular well is to perform an extended production test with a conventional completion and observe whether sand production occurs.