Perforation Strategy Optimization for Sand production Prevention with Case Study: Fula North Field-Sudan

Abstract

Managing sand production is critical in Fulafield operation. Solid productionis often causing issues with completion and surface facilities. Sand management and prevention are the current practices and leaving sand control as the last option if required. To make better informed decision to select sand control, one must understand, managing and preventing two conditions that may cause sand production: formation failure and sand transportation which lead to this study. The integrated approach started from acknowledging the lack of efficiency and higher cost of available sand control methods, followed by studying the availability of better sand control options, data collection of candidate well, data analysis, identification of sand production prone formations, perforation system optimization and wells evaluation. Six producers with sand problems were studied to correlate the production characteristics with sand production behaviors. Significant correlation was observed for the velocity per perforation with the severity of sand production trend. Sand production is less with reduction inthe velocity per perforation. The velocity threshold limit was identified utilizing PIPESIM software for simulation and considering the variation in critical drawdown pressure limits. For this field those wells that are producing higher than the medium limit historically has higher sand production. The optimum perforation system was evaluated using PIPESIM software. The selection criteria and constraint were strongly governed by adequacy of depth of penetration, perforation spacing that isdictated by the shot density and phasing, sand transportation velocity threshold limit. This will aid in better optimized perforation system to manage potential sand production problem and guideline for production optimization processes. This research will focus on perforation optimization strategy for sand prevention with a case study for six sand producers in Fula field using the above mentioned approached. The results are favorable.