Abstract A wormhole dynamic growth model has been developed and incorporated with a commercial reservoir simulator, i.e., CMG, to characterize wormhole growth for cold heavy oil production with sand (CHOPS) processes and extends its application to a field well. More specifically, geomechanics analysis associated with a collapsed pore and its throat structure has been performed to quantify the sand production. Then, a sand failure criterion and a four-direction pressure difference analysis are respectively proposed to determine the sand production rate and the potential direction of wormhole generation and growth. By considering the uncertainties associated with the parameters involved in the wormhole growth model, history matching is respectively conducted to estimate the critical breakdown pressure, superficial area of the collapsed throats, and coefficients of the permeability-porosity correlation for a field CHOPS well. Subsequently, the dynamic wormhole growth model has been validated with a synthetic model and then extended to a CHOPS well for determining its wormhole network. It is found from both the synthetic case and field application that the newly proposed technique can be used to determine the corresponding wormhole network as a function of time by history matching the production profile. Furthermore, the history matched models can also be utilized to optimize the following enhanced oil recovery processes such as cyclic solvent injection.