Abstract
An important application of horizontal well technology in Canada is recovering oil from marginal heavy oil reservoirs in Saskatchewan and Alberta. These reservoirs are often poorly consolidated ; as a result, recovery operations are susceptible to sand production which potentially poses a serious problem as the sand particles deposit and partially block the horizontal well. This work presents a mathematical treatment of the transport process of oil and sand particles inside a horizontal well. In particular, the model described in this paper formulates the transport process mechanistically. Equations of mass and momentum conservation for the solid phase (sand particles) and the fluid phase (oil) are formulated. The oil is assumed to be Newtonian, and the sand particles are assumed to be spherical in shape and uniform in size. In addition, the model incorporates empirical correlations to describe the interaction between the two phases. The system of equations is solved numerically to determine the distribution of sand particles and oil, their pressure and velocity distributions as a result of the presence of a constriction inside the horizontal well. Simulation results obtained provide insight into the mechanisms involved in the transport process, thus enhance the understanding of the flow of sand and oil inside a horizontal well. This, in tum, yields some guidelines for production operations involving horizontal wells in unconsolidated and poorly consolidated reservoirs.
Published Version
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