Authors: Chenxi Wang, Yu Pang, Mahdi Mahmoudi, Mohammad Haftani, Mahmoud Salimi, Vahidoddin Fattahpour, Alireza Nouri

Slotted liners have been widely used in steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) wells owing to their low cost and superior mechanical integrity. Multiple factors affect the performance of slotted liners, such as particle size distribution (PSD) of formation sands, aperture size, slot density, fluid flow rate, and wellbore operational conditions. Currently, most of the existing design criteria formulate the lower and upper bounds of the aperture based on one or several points on the particle size distribution curve of oil sands. Most of these design criteria neglect the slot density, wellbore operational conditions, and shape of PSD curve.

This study carries out a series of large-scale pre-pack sand retention tests (SRT) in step rates. The aim is to investigate the impacts of aperture size, slot density, and fluid flow rate on the slotted liner performance. Comprehensive design criteria for determining the safe aperture window are presented to maintain the sanding and the wellbore plugging of the zone near the slotted liners within an acceptable level. Sand production governs the upper bound of the aperture size, and flow performance guides the lower bound of the aperture size. The new criteria are presented graphically to illustrate the optimal slot window as a function of the sand PSD, slot density, and fluid flow rate. The results of separate tests are used to demonstrate the performance of the new design criteria. The optimal slot window obtained via the new design criteria guides the slot liner selection in the SAGD process.

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Authors: Yanlong Li, Fulong Ning, Nengyou Wu, Qiang Chen, Alireza Nouri, Gaowei Hu, Jiaxin Sun, Zenggui Kuang, Qingguo Meng

The process of extracting natural gas from gas hydrate‐bearing sediments (GHBS) may yield significant sand influx due to the metastable nature of GHBS. Selecting appropriate sand control media is vital to addressing the challenges caused by excessive sand production. This study proposes a protocol called holding coarse expelling fine particles (HCEFP) for sand control design. The protocol aims to provide a new optimization method for screen mesh size selection for clayey silt hydrate reservoirs. Detailed optimizing procedures of proper candidate screen mesh sizes in hydrate exploitation well in clayey silt hydrate reservoirs are depicted based on the HCEFP. Then, the site W18, which is located in the Shenhu area of the northern South China Sea, is taken as an example to illustrate the optimization procedure for screen mesh size selection. The results reveal that complete solid retention via a standalone screen is rarely beneficial as high clay contents can adversely affect wellbore productivity due to excessive plugging. Screen aperture size selection for clayey silt hydrate wells should strike a balance between retaining coarser particles and avoiding screen blockage by the relatively fine particles. Furthermore, longitudinal heterogeneity of the PSDs also increases the difficulties associated with sand control design. Multistage sand control optimization is necessary in hydrate production wells. For Site W18, we recommend that the entire production interval can be divided into two subintervals for multistage sand control operations.

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Authors: Yujia Guo, Alireza Nouri, and Siavash Nejadi

Sand production from a poorly consolidated reservoir could give rise to some severe problems during production. Holding the load bearing solids in place is the main goal of any sand control technique. The only sand control techniques that have found applications in steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) are some of the mechanical methods, including wire wrapped screens, slotted liners and more recently, punched screens. Slotted liner is one of the most effective mechanical sand control methods in the unconsolidated reservoir exploitation, which has proven to be the preferred sand control method in the SAGD operations. The main advantage of the slotted liners that makes them suitable for SAGD operations is their superior mechanical integrity for the completion of long horizontal wells. This study is an attempt to increase the existing understanding of the fines migration, sand production, and plugging tendency for slotted liners by using a novel large-scale scaled completion test (SCT) facility. A triaxial cell assembly was used to load sand-packs with specified and controlled grain size distribution, shape and mineralogy, on multi-slot sand control coupons. Different stress levels were applied parallel and perpendicular to different combinations of slot width and density in multi-slot coupons, while brine was injected from the top of the sand-pack towards the coupon. At each stress level, the mass of produced sand was measured, and the pressure drops along the sand-pack and coupon were recorded. Fines migration was also investigated by measuring fines/clay concentration along the sand-pack. The current study employed multi-slot coupons to investigate flow interactions among slots and its effect on the flow performance of liner under typically encountered stresses in SAGD wells. According to the experimental observations, increasing slot width generally reduces the possibility of pore plugging caused by fines migration. However, there is a limit for slot aperture beyond which the plugging is not reduced any further, and only a higher level of sanding occurs. Test measurements also indicated that besides the slot width, the slot density also influences the level of plugging and sand production and must be included in the design criteria.

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Authors: Seyed Abolhassan Hosseini (University of Alberta, RGL Reservoir Management Inc.) | Morteza Roostaei (RGL Reservoir Management Inc.) | Mahdi Mahmoudi (RGL Reservoir Management Inc.) | Ahmad Alkouh (College of Technological Studies) | Vahidoddin Fattahpour (RGL Reservoir Management Inc.)

Production from weakly and unconsolidated sand formations relies on the efficiency of the employed sand control method. Performance of current sand control devices is based on surface size exclusion and depth filtration depending on their geometry and application. In this study, we investigate the possibility of using the advantage of both mechanisms in a single device.

The standard cut point test was used to determine the micron rating of different meshes in order to categorize them in different classes based on the average pore size. Different mesh weaves, namely Dutch twill, reversed Dutch twill and square mesh screens with different micron rating were investigated in terms of filtration performance. In the next step, a dead-end filtration set-up was designed and commissioned to evaluate the flow performance and sand control capabilities of mesh screens. Additionally, a new, customized sand control device was designed and included in the testing matrix to compare its performance with the common mesh screens in the market.

Dead-end filtration results indicated that by choosing the proper combination of morphology, both optimized open to flow area (OFA) and sand control could be achieved. The custom designed hybrid screen performed better compared to other investigated mesh screens with similar micron rating, in terms of both flow and filtration performance. Therefore, the customization was found to be the key parameter to achieve the optimized design. This further emphasizes that by employing the hybrid benefits of surface size exclusion and depth filtration, one can reach the optimized sand control and flow performance. Regarding the weave of different mesh screens, the results did not show any trends that could lead to a conclusion of better performance of a certain weave. Further investigations are required under different testing condition to achieve a conclusive comparison between different mesh types.

This paper investigates the possibility of customized sand control design, which uses the hybrid benefits of surface size exclusion and depth filtration to reach the optimized sand control and flow performance.

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Authors: A. Velayati (University of Alberta) | M. Roostaei (RGL Reservoir Management Inc) | A. Sharbatian (RGL Reservoir Management Inc) | V. Fattahpour (RGL Reservoir Management Inc) | M. Mahmoudi (RGL Reservoir Management Inc) | C. F. Lange (University of Alberta) | A. Nouri (University of Alberta)

Well completion is the process of borehole preparation for the production. Cased and perforated slotted liner completion is used extensively as the completion configuration in the wells drilled into conventional sand formation reservoirs. Such completions may exhibit lower productivity ratios compared to the open-hole condition. The reasons include perforations collapse, flow convergence in the vicinity of the slots and perforations, and the formation damage caused by perforating. These effects have compounding effects as the formation damage magnifies the flow convergence effect and the flow convergence magnifies the skin buildup by the fines migration. In this study, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) numerical finite volume model was constructed for a vertical cased and perforated completion in a sand reservoir. Results include the skin values that were compared for the different slot and perforation densities. Stability of the perforation tunnels was considered as a variable in this research, and the results were summarized and analyzed in terms of the skin formed as a result of flow convergence. It was found that sanding in perforation tunnels and the resulting change in the permeability of the collapsed tunnel magnifies flow convergence skin significantly, especially in the lower shot densities and this added pressure drop can be very troubling. Results show in lower perforation densities higher pressure drawdowns may trigger sand production due to the tensile failure. Additionally, a parametric study was carried out on the sanding possibilities.

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