Sand Production Risk Assessment Services

Sand production and the sand control technique selected to mitigate or eliminate it, can have a critical influence on the operation of oil and gas wells. A well completion that provides adequate sand control is usually required, but an overly conservative design can have an unnecessary, negative consequence on well productivity or injectivity.

The selection of the appropriate level of sand control is not a trivial process, as it depends on many factors including: the characteristics of the producing reservoir, the in-situ stress state, the reservoir pressure, the drawdown pressure, the near-well fluid saturations, the well trajectory, and the capacity of the well for handling sand in the tubulars and surface facilities.  Weatherford Geomechanics Services has extensive experience in the prediction of sand production risks for vertical, inclined and horizontal wells in a wide variety of reservoir settings and well designs throughout the world. Our toolkit for this type of analysis includes: 

• STABView™ - our leading-edge commercial sand production and wellbore stability software with capabilities for a wide range of well completions (slotted liners, screens, expandables, perforations, etc.);
• Commercial numerical geomechanical models, such as FLAC, for rigorous coupled modeling of coupled fluid flow, rock deformation and rock failure processes;
• Empirical, experience-based criteria interpreted from production data documented by various operators in settings around the world;
• ROCKSBank™ – our commercial database of petrophysical and rock mechanical properties for reservoirs and caprocks from around the world.

Our staff are highly skilled in the process of extracting maximum value from available datasets such as wireline and LWD log data, core petrophysical data, rock mechanical tests, identifying and guiding future data collection needs, and providing recommendations for appropriate well completions. Our integrated approach draws on our experience in geology, petrophysics, rock and soil mechanics, multi-phase flow modeling, wellbore hydraulics and production engineering.

Cross-section of a screened horizontal openhole completion, showing the extent of the predicted yielded zone and the deformation of the borehole wall under drawdown conditions. Produced with STABView.