Effect Screen Erosion on Reservoir Performance

Abstract

Oil and gas are mainly produced from sandstone reservoirs, where sand production may play an important role in the whole reservoir development strategy, not only in terms of optimizing well completion, but in well rate and pressure constraints. Sand screens are a commonly used completion solution in such reservoirs, either as stand alone or in a cased hole, with or without different types of gravel pack. Sand screens are not a perfect completion, they can be damaged by a collapsed borehole, plugged by reservoir fines or be eroded by sand. The idea behind this thesis is to investigate the effects of rate constraints on reservoir performance due to erosion of sand screens in a cased hole. This is done by incorporating an analytical sand screen erosion model with a completion model in NETool and a reservoir model in ECLIPSE. Results show that gravel pack is the most suitable to protect sand screens from erosion while enabling the well to produce at high rate. Analysis have shown that under investigated conditions, gravel pack sand screens completion have highest production potential.