Successful Installation of Stand Alone Sand Screen in More Than 200 Wells—The Importance of Screen Selection Process and Fluid Qualification

摘要

Effective sand control and high well productivity throughout the life of the well have been defined as success criteria for the use of Stand Alone Screen as sand control strategy. This paper describes the strategy to meet these success criteria and illustrates the experience in Hydro Oil & Energy to date. A recommended practice for the selection of sand control has been established based on a comprehensive screen selection and fluid qualification process. The method includes testing and ranking of different screen designs based on sand retention and plugging properties for selected samples of reservoir sand. The screen design with the overall best performance is recommended for field application. In addition, requirements for drilling and completion fluids have been defined. Control of particle size and particle amount in the completion fluid has been identified as the most important criteria. Stand Alone Screen as sand control strategy have been successfully utilized for approximately 230 completions based of the presented methodology. For several of these wells, the established selection criteria published in the literature, recommended other sand control techniques to that used, e.g. open hole gravel pack. Based on Hydro Oil & Energy ‘s field experience the common practice for sand control selection applied within the industry today might be too cautious. It is concluded that Stand Alone Screen as completion method can have wider application than recognized so far.