Study the Sand Production Problem for Sudanese Oil Field (FNE Case Study)

Abstract

The production of formation sand is a problem associated with most oil deposits in the world. Major Sand production effects affect safety, well or field economics and continuous production. This has prompted the continued search for solutions to mitigate sand production in the oil and gas industry over time. Fula North East(FNE) a Sudanese oil field is selected as case study, FNE Field is shallow heavy oil reservoir with good hydrocarbon concentrate in small area, which has three productive sand intervals, named “Bentiu”, “Aradeiba”, and “Abu Gabra”,. With normal Faults, and has clear oil/water contact (OWC) system in “Bentiu” formation, FNE oilfield produces high viscous crude oil from productive sand interval, (Bentiu) massive sand formation, sands in this formation had average initial oil saturation of 50%. Average porosity is 27% and permeability range from 1 to 10 Darcie’s, however the oil density of 10 to 17.9 degree API and viscosity of 3791.5 cp, combined with low initial reservoir temperature (44ºC) and (576psi) average reservoir pressure result in low primary recovery. The study proposed to analyze high sand production wells it has been found that 42 wells suffering from sand production problem in this oil Field, Classification according to formation, location, pay zone and sand productivity has been done in this thesis. We used analytical method depending on data collected from workover program for mentioned wells and data from manual pigging and flushing for flow lines. The wells which produce from south location of FNE (Steam flooding Area) is highest sand production wells in FNE oil field. The Cold wells are producing higher sand compare to CSS wells.