Egyptian Journal of Petroleum (2015) 24, 193–202

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Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute

Egyptian Journal of Petroleum

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FULL LENGTH ARTICLE

Choosing an optimum sand control method

Ehsan Khamehchi *, Omid Ameri, Ali Alizadeh

Faculty of the Petroleum Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Received 13 February 2014; accepted 8 April 2014

Available online 15 June 2015

KEYWORDS Abstract Formation sand control is always one of the main concerns of production engineers.
Sand control method; There are some different methods to prevent sand production. Choosing a method for prevent-
Economic evaluation; ing formation sand production depends on different reservoir parameters and politic and eco-
Skin factor nomic conditions. Sometimes, economic and politic conditions are more effective to choose an
optimum than reservoir parameters. Often, simultaneous investigation of politic and economic
conditions with reservoir parameters has different results with what is expected. So, choosing
the best sand control method is the result of thorough study. Global oil price, duration of sand
control project and costs of necessary equipment for each method as economic and politic
conditions and well productivity index as reservoir parameter are the main parameters studied
in this paper.
ª 2015 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Egyptian Petroleum Research
Institute. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction and settle in surface vessels. Controlling formation sand is

costly and usually involves either slowing the production rate
The production of formation sand into a well is one of the old- or using control techniques [1].
est problems plaguing the oil and gas industry because of its Often, reduction in the production rate is not an economic
adverse effects on well productivity and equipment. It is nor- approach to overcome sand production problem. So, it is
mally associated with shallow, geologically young formations preferred to use sand control techniques. Using sand control
that have little or no natural cementation to hold the individ- techniques accompany with additional equipment for well
ual sand grains together. As a result, when the wellbore pres- completion. Although this equipment prevents formation sand
sure is lower than the reservoir pressure, drag forces are entering the wellbore by various mechanisms, it decreases the
applied to the formation sands as a consequence of fluid pro- reservoir productivity. On the other hand, additional skin fac-
duction. If the formation’s restraining forces are exceeded, tor is caused due to sand control technique. This indicates that
sand will be drawn into the wellbore. The produced sand has the magnitude of the skin is also an important parameter to
essentially no economic value. On the contrary, formation choose a sand control method for a sand producer well. So,
sand not only can plug wells, but also can erode equipment before choosing a method to prevent sand production, it is
important to know the skin factor of the method and evaluate
well production economically for a specific period. In this
* Corresponding author. paper, skin factors of different sand control methods are
E-mail address: [email protected] (E. Khamehchi). investigated and indicated the best method for real case
Peer review under responsibility of Egyptian Petroleum Research economically.
Institute.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpe.2015.05.009
1110-0621 ª 2015 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
194 E. Khamehchi et al.

Nomenclature

Bo oil formation volume factor rl length of gravel penetration into reservoir

Dperf perforation diameter rw wellbore radius
h reservoir thickness Sg skin factor due to gravel pack
hp interval open to flow Spp skin factor due to pre-packed screen
Kg gravel pack permeability Ssl skin due to slotted liner
Kr reservoir permeability Sww skin due to wire wrapped screen
m the number of slot rows ps pressure drop due to skin factor
n the number of perforation l viscosity
qo oil rate X fraction open area

2. Skin factor due to sand control method Table 2 Well Data.

ID producing tubing 0.08 m
Top of producing sand face 2868.168 feet
The aim of this section is investigation of skin factor formula
Wellhead temperature 25 C
for each common method of sand control which contains
Production fluid Oil
gravel pack method, slotted liner method, wire wrapped screen Thickness of producing layer 45.72 m
and prepacked screen. Wellbore radius 0.1524 m
Wellhead pressure 4.82 MPa
2.1. Gravel pack method

Gravel pack is a common sand control technique used in many completely correct. There is another equation for this skin that
formations with unconsolidated or poorly consolidated sands. is more precious [3]
Sand production can often be readily achieved by proper sizing
of the gravel with respect to formation sand size using well 96 KKgr hLP
Sg ¼ ð3Þ
established rules. Sometimes, well consolidated formations ðD2perf Þn
can produce sand and hence gravel pack is employed in such
formations for sand control. where Lp is gravel perforation length, Dperf is perforation
There is a main factor which influences the production in diameter and n is number of perforations.
gravel packed wells. It is flow restriction imposed by features
of gravel pack. This factor affects the permeability and reduces
it. So, gravel pack causes an excess skin which produces an 2.2. Slotted liner method
extra pressure drop as a consequence of excess skin factor.
In fact, pressure drops because of the permeability chang- Slotted liners have been used for many years to provide sand
ing from reservoir permeability to gravel permeability. The
additional pressure drop across the gravel zone is [2,4]: control in many oil industry applications. This consists of steel
141:2qo Bo lo Sg pipe (e.g. tubing) where a series of parallel slots have been cut
DPs ¼ ð1Þ through the metal. The width of these slots is normally made
kr h
as small as mechanically practical so that they will retain a
where Sg is: large fraction of the formation sand as much as possible.
  
h rw Kr The inflow area is low (2–3% of pipe surface area). Due to
Sg ¼ ln 1 ð2Þ the restriction of the inflow area, the flow pattern will deviate
hP rl Kg
from idealized redial and uniform axial distribution. One can
In the above equations, Kr is reservoir permeability, Kg is represent a skin factor for the deviation of ideal flow as
gravel permeability, h is reservoir thickness and hP is interval follows:
open to flow. The above equation for gravel skin is not
2 2
Ssl ¼ ln ð4Þ
Table 1 Fluid and reservoir data. n pX

Reservoir pressure 27.74 MPa where n is the number of slot rows and X is the open fraction
Solution GOR 323 m3/m3 of the pipe. Usually this method is cheap and easy to apply but
Oil gravitya 37API it does not work well for sand controlling projects.
Gas gravitya 0.73 sp gr
Oil viscositya 0.0017 Pa s
Table 3 Well test data and correlations.
Oil FVFa 1.954 m3/Sm3
Reservoir temperature 110 C Skin factor 8.3
Bubble point pressure 16.71 MPa Reservoir permeability 53 md
Drainage area 7.65 km2 Pb, Rs, Bo correlations Standing method
a Viscosity correlation Beggs et al. method
Measures at reference pressure 3100 psi
Choosing an optimum sand control method 195

Figure 1 Production system for open-hole state.

Figure 2 Situation of downhole equipment.

2.3. Wire wrapped screen smaller and be held to the target value with a much greater
accuracy; allowing the screen to retain finer grained formations
This method consists of a triangular shaped wire which is care- than the slotted liner [4].
fully wound so that there is a constant gap between successive In the literature, there is no explicit formula to calculate the
turns. It is held in place by spot welding the wire to vertical skin due to applied wire wrapped screen in the wellbore. In
formers placed at 1 cm intervals around the internal diameter fact, wire wrapped screens are a kind of slotted liner with hor-
of the screen. Wire wrapped screens have the advantage over izontal slots but they have more inflow in open area. Wire
a slotted liner that the gap between the wires can be made wrapped screens have horizontal gap between them and one
196 E. Khamehchi et al.

can use Eq. (4) for skin factor due to wire wrapped screens. Eq.
(2) can be used too. But outside permeability of screen is used
instead of gravel pack permeability.

2.4. Pre-packed screen

Pre-packed screens are constructed from two concentric

screens with a layer of gravel placed in between them. The
gravel had been coated with a layer of thermosetting resin.
The construction process is as follows [5]:

(i) The dual concentric screens have been welded onto the
base pipe.
Figure 3 Formation grain size distribution (adapted from
(ii) The gap between them is filled with the resin coated sand
Iranian offshore oil company).
and the final welds made.
(iii) The completed screen is placed in an oven where
the thermosetting resin, hardens creating a strong ring
of gravel.

Figure 4 Production system for gravel packed completion.

Figure 5 Variation of operating oil rate vs. gravel pack permeability.

Choosing an optimum sand control method 197

Table 5 Slotted liner properties for sand control completion.

Table 4 Gravel pack properties for sand control completion.
Liner inner radius 0.0762 m
Mesh size 30/50
Liner outer radius 0.0814 m
Permeability 90 D
Slot height 0.1524 m
Length of penetration 0.0508 m
Slot width 0.000762 m
Number of slot rows 10

The pore throats of the consolidated gravel provide a series

of narrow openings which provide the sand exclusion and 3. Model description
retain the formation in place. The presence of the gravel, with
its narrow pore throat diameter, provides a greater flow
In this section, the production system of the real well of
restriction than the wire wrapped screen alone; as well making
Iranian field will be investigated which has potential of sand
the screen susceptible to plugging by formation fines etc. The
production and causes many problems on the surface equip-
greater complexity of the prepacked screen increases the cost
ment. Different strategies for completion of this well can be
[6].
designed; however, the purpose is to design a way which results
The skin due to pre-packed screens is the combination of
in maximum economic profit. In other words, the difference
skin due to gravel and skin due to screen around the gravel
between costs of implementation of sand control completion
(whether wire wrapped screen or slotted liner screen) [4]
and the benefits of oil production after that should be maxi-
Spp ¼ Sg þ Sww ð5Þ mized. This is not true that the method for less skin effect is

Figure 6 Variation of oil rate vs. slot width.

Figure 7 Production system for slotted liner completion.

198 E. Khamehchi et al.

performance relations are calculated by a common well and

Table 6 Wire wrapped screen and pre-packed screen
reservoir simulator and its results are shown in Fig. 1. Also,
properties.
Fig. 2 shows the situation of down-hole equipment.
WWS properties The well history production shows that the completion
Screen inner radius 0.067 m needs equipment for sand control; so, skin due to sand control
Outside permeability 1000 md method, costs of implementation of sand control completion,
Pre-packed screen properties and cumulative oil production after using the methods
Screen inner radius 0.054 m must be evaluated simultaneously and then the best scenario
Screen outer radius 0.08128 m is chosen.

3.1. Open-hole completion (without sand control equipment)

the best one for completion and as said before, an economic
evaluation is the last and the most important step for choosing. As regards history data, sand production is almost 910 lb
For this work, reservoir data and well data are available in per day. Simulation of oil production through downhole
Tables 1 and 2 respectively. Also, well test data and correla- equipment shows that there is erosional flow at operating
tions that are used for calculation of PVT properties and pres- rate due to sand production (Fig. 1). So, sand production must
sure drop in well are available in Table 3. Inflow and outflow be omitted and sand control methods are required.

Figure 8 Production system for wire wrapped screen completion.

Figure 9 Production system for pre-packed screen completion.

Choosing an optimum sand control method 199

Table 7 Summary of calculated data for all of the sand Table 8 Approximate costs of sand control equipment and
control methods. operations.
Sand control type Production rate at Total skin Equipment and operations Cost (1000$)
operating point factor
Gravel pack method
Gravel pack method 1410 8.7 Necessary tools 400
Slotted liner method 1078 14.8 Perforation or under reaming 600
Wire wrapped screen 1310 10.2 Fluids and gravels 1000
method Pump 1500
Pre-packed screen 1370 9.5 Rig time (30 days) 30 · 20
method Gravel pack placement operation 6000
Man power 300
Gravel pack replacement (total cost) 8000
Slotted liner method
3.1.1. Gravel packed well completion Slotted pipe (3 branches) 3 · 300
Rig time (10 days) 10 · 20
Important parameters in design and investigation of gravel Man power 80
packed well are gravel size or mesh size and gravel pack length Work-over operation 400
or penetration of gravel in formation. These parameters
directly influence gravel pack permeability and consequently Wire wrapped screen method
Screen (3 branches) 3 · 800
affect oil production rate. Existence of gravel in the well causes
Rig time (10 days) 10 · 20
additional skin (gravel pack causes non-Darcy flow which can
Work-over operation 400
be neglected for oil flow).
According to Fig. 3, formation sand size is about 0.00032– Pre-packed screen method
0.00125 m in diameter which indicates formation has a sort of Screen (4 branches) 4 · 1200
Rig time (10 days) 10 · 20
coarse grains. As regards this information, gravel pack is cho-
Work-over operation 400
sen by properties available in Table 4. Using a simulation of
gravel pack application in the well, skin factor due to the sand
control method equals to 0.4 and IPR and OPR curves show
that the operating rate reduced to 225 m3/day (Fig. 4).
Results show that skin factor due to gravel is more sensitive 3.1.2. Well completion with slotted liner
to non-Darcy coefficient than gravel permeability. Because of As said in the previous section, slotted liners are pipes includ-
oil flow in gravel pack non-Darcy effect is negligible and as ing horizontal or vertical slots. Slot width, slot height, number
it can be seen in Fig. 5 operating oil rate does not change with of slot per foot, and inner diameter of the screen are the main
a variation of gravel permeability in long range. It can help the parameters which have considerable effect on the production
designers to choose cheaper gravel for gravel packing opera- rate. It is obvious if changing these parameters increases pro-
tion because gravel permeability is one of the parameters duction rate, decreases skin due to presence of slotted liners.
which effects gravel price. In designing of slotted liners, slot width must be small enough

Figure 10 NPV plot for 12 years and discount rate of 10%.

200 E. Khamehchi et al.

Figure 11 NPV plot for a low PI reservoir.

Figure 12 NPV plot for a high PI reservoir.

to prevent sand production properly. On the other hand the As regards simulation of sand control project using slotted
smaller the width, the larger the skin. So, slot width must be liner, production rate at operating point and the skin
in optimum size. Fig. 6 shows the relation between slot width caused by sand control, is 171.5 m3/day and 6.1 respectively
and rate of operating point. (Fig. 7).
According to formation grain size distribution and relation
which is shown in Fig. 6, the proper slot width will be 0.003 m. 3.1.3. Well completion using wire wrapped screen
The properties of designed slotted liner for sand control Using wire wrapped screens causes skin like other methods
project are available in Table 5. which depends on inner diameter and open fraction area of
Choosing an optimum sand control method 201

Figure 13 NPV plot for 20 $/bbl oil.

Figure 14 NPV plot for 100 $/bbl oil.

the screens. Usually, the skin of wire wrapped screen is less 3.1.4. Sand control using pre-packed screens
than slotted liner’s, because open fraction area of WWSs is This method is more expensive compared to others. Using pre-
higher than slotted liners. The characteristics of wire wrapped packed screens with characteristics available in Table 6, causes
screen used in wellbore are available in Table 6. reduction of production rate to 218 m3/day, as it is shown in
Fig. 8 shows the inflow and outflow performance Fig. 9. All of the important calculated data for each method
relations when wire wrapped screen is used for sand control. are available in Table 7 and a general comparison is possible.
As it can be seen, production rate at operating point is This table says the best method is gravel pack completion
208 m3/day and its skin is 1.9. while it is not true.
202 E. Khamehchi et al.

4. Economic evaluation 5. Conclusion

As said before, the skin value and the operation rate are not 1. Any sand control equipment has some characteristics that
the only main parameters for choosing the best project. their variations will affect both their price and magnitude
Economic evaluation is the most important step of deciding. of skin caused by them.
In this section, it is tried to compare all methods economically 2. A method with less skin effect is not essentially the best
by using approximate operating cost of any method. Finally, sand production control method.
the best project will be found. 3. At low production rate and for low PI reservoirs, choice of
Table 8 provides the typical approximate operation suitable method is influenced by global oil price and invest-
expenditures, which are necessary for economic evaluation, ment interest rate. In other words, choice of suitable
for all sand control methods. Also, oil barrel price should method is not directly affected by the well skin.
be known. It is assumed as 80 $/bbl. Other assumptions 4. At high PI reservoirs and for long-time project, the best
are as follows: method is the one that has higher oil production. So, the
skin value has an intense effect on choosing the sand pro-
 Gravel packed completion is required for replacing duction method.
gravel pack every 4 years. 5. According to economic condition the best sand control pro-
 For maximizing the efficiency, slotted liners should be ject for the described well and reservoir is the wire pre-
replaced by other liners every 2 years. packed screen method.
 Wire wrapped screens should work over operation every
year and must be replaced every 2 years.
 Pre-packed screens should work over every year and References
should be replaced every 2 years.
 Discount rate is assumed to be 10%. [1] E. Khamehchi, I. Rahimzadeh Kivi, M.R. Akbari, A novel
approach to sand production prediction using artificial
Figs. 10–14 are Net Present Value (NPV) plot of 12 years intelligence, J. Petrol. Sci. Eng. 123 (2014) 147–154.
for different parameters. Fig. 10 shows the pre-packed screen [2] R. Risnes, R.K. Bratli, P. Horsrud, Sand arching – a case study,
method is the best while according to simulation the operating In: paper EUR 310, presented at the European Petroleum
rate of gravel pack completion is higher than its. Fig. 11 is Conference, Oct 25–28, 1982.
NPV plot for a reservoir with less productivity index value [3] B. Wu, C. Bahri, S. Carigali, C.P. Tan, Q. Li, H. Rahim, G.
rather than the described reservoir in this paper. Results show Kartoatmodjo, T. Friedel, Sand production prediction for a mature
wire wrapped screen is the best sand control method and the oil field offshore East Malaysia – a case study, SPE 133375, In: SPE
pre-packed screen method is the worst one. Asia Pacific Oil & Gas Conference and Exhibition, Brisbane,
Queensland, Australia, 18–20 October 2010.
Fig. 12 is NPV plot for a reservoir with high PI value rather
[4] C.U. Okoye, S. Suriyakriangkai, A. Ghalambor, Analysis of
than described reservoir. As it can be seen gravel packing is an
skins and the performance of gravel packed completions in oil
acceptable method. Figs. 13 and 14 show the effect of oil price and gas wells, SPE 23827, In: SPE Symposium or Formation
on choosing the best sand control method. When benefits are Damage Control Held in Lafayette, Louisiana, 1992.
low the wire wrapped screen is the best while for high benefits [5] S. Michael, Resin coated pre-packed sand control liner, SPE
gravel pack will be chosen. These analyses show that global oil 83480, In: SPE Western Regional/AAPG Pacific Section Joint
price, time of capital return, and reservoir productivity index Meeting, California, 2003.
are more important than the sand control skin effect, especially [6] T.M.V. Kaiser, S. Wilson, Inflow analysis and optimization of
for low oil production rate. slotted liners, SPE 80145, In: SPE Drilling and Completion, 2002.