Analysis of Sand-Control-Installation Failures Provides Insights, Paths Forward

Abstract

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Judy Feder, contains highlights of paper SPE 199251, “Understanding Sand-Control-Installation Failures,” by Raymond Tibbles, SPE, Kesavan Govinathan, SPE, and Ian Mickelburgh, SPE, DuneFront, et al., prepared for the 2020 SPE International Conference and Exhibition on Formation Damage Control, 19-21 February, Lafayette, Louisiana. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Sand-control-installation failures range from minor issues that can be remedied easily to catastrophic events that put the entire well and investment at risk. The complete paper introduces several case studies of such failures and details the investigative process and techniques used to identify root causes. A commercial software tool incorporating data-analysis techniques and a methodical evaluation work flow were used to understand the cause of the failures and determine how they can be prevented in future operations. Examples include events such as screen and washpipe damage, bridging, hole collapse, and packer-seal failure. Introduction Potential modes of failure tradition ally have been investigated with material- balance calculations and surface-pressure measurements. However, this simple approach is unable to diagnose clearly the specific failure mode and often is insufficiently precise to be conclusive, especially for high-value wells. While surface data provide an overview of the operation, the data are influenced by many factors involving the entire system, making it difficult to differentiate multiple events and locate them in the flow path. Mass-balance calculation is also a rudimentary analysis with many inherent assumptions. Often, estimations of perforation or openhole volumes are inaccurate, location of voids cannot be identified in the event of an incomplete pack, and gravel volume and mass measurements do not help in understanding packing mechanisms. Attempts have been made to develop logging techniques to obtain a clearer picture of the outcome of a gravel pack. While this effort has met with some success in cased holes, it has proved to be difficult to apply in open holes. Regardless, identification of the presence of voids in a gravel pack does not provide a clear explanation of why they formed and how they may be prevented in the future.