Sand Production Prediction

Oil companies are in business to produce oil and/or gas, and not to produce water or sand, lol.

Sand production from unconsolidated reservoirs has a significant impact on the well operation and the economics of oil and gas production.

Sand production is a 2 stage process (failure of rock & transportation of the failed material into the wellbore). These 2 processes have to occur for sand production to be observed.

Some ways employed when deciding whether to install sand exclusion techniques:

1.  Field experience (check nearby wells drilled if there was sand production)

2.  Petrophysical logs (e.g. acoustic logs; short travel times indicate low porosity and hard, dense rock, while long travel times are associated with soft, low density, high porosity rock) and core analysis

3.  Rock strength measurements (wellsite rock strength estimation & rock mechanical measurements)