Discrete Elements Analysis of Sand Production Mechanism in Oil Well Considering Effects of in-situ Stress and Fluid Pressure

Yazdani, Masoud; Fatehi Marji, Mohammad; Soltanian, Hamid; Najafi, Mehdi; Sanei, Manouchehr

doi:10.22044/jme.2024.13894.2585

Document Type : Original Research Paper

Authors

¹ Department of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

² Drilling & Well Completion Technologies & Research Group, Research Institution of Petroleum Industry, Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22044/jme.2024.13894.2585

Abstract

Approximately 70% of the world's hydrocarbon fields are located in reservoirs with low-strength rocks such as sandstone. During the production of hydrocarbons from sandstone reservoirs, sand-sized particles may become dislodged from the formation, and enter the hydrocarbon fluid flow. Sand production is a significant issue in the oil industry due to its potential to cause erosion of pipes and valves. Separating grains from oil is a costly process. Therefore, oil and gas-producing companies are motivated to reduce sand production during petroleum extraction. Various methods exist for predicting this phenomenon including continuous, discontinuous, experimental, physical, analytical, and numerical methods. Given the significance of the subject, this research work aims to achieve two primary objectives. Firstly, it proposes a two-dimensional numerical model based on the discrete element method to address the issues of high strain and deformation in granular materials. This method is highly reliable in simulating the mechanism of sand production in oil wells. Secondly, the production of sand is influenced by two factors: fluid pressure and stress; to evaluate changes in production from a particular reservoir, it is necessary to analyze each parameter. Two sandstone samples, similar to reservoir rock conditions, were prepared and tested in the laboratory to demonstrate sand production phenomenon. The numerical results have been verified and compared to their experimental counterparts.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Rock Mechanics

References

[1] Dusseault MB and Santarelli FJ A. (1989). Conceptual model for massive solids production in poorly-consolidated sandstones. Rock at great depth. 2(1),789–797.

[2] Fjaer. E, Holt RM, Horsrud P, Raaen AM, and Risnes R. (1992) Petroleum related rock mechanics. Amsterdam.

[3] Bianco LC. (1999) Phenomena of sand production in non-consolidated sandstones. PhD thesis. Penn State University, University Park, Penn.

[4] Toma P, Harris B, Korpany G, Bohun D, and George A. (2009). Experimental investigations for reducing the risk of sand inﬂow in slotted horizontal wells. Proceedings of the ASME energy source technical conference and exhibition. 23(5): 1–10.

[5] Geilikman MB and Dusseault MB. (1997). Dynamics of wormholes and enhancement of ﬂuid production. Proceedings of the 48th annual technical meeting of the petroleum society. 8–11.

[6] Unander TE, Papamichos E, Trovoll J, and Skjaerstein A. (1997). Flow geometry effects on sand production from an oil producing perforation cavity. J Rock Mech Min. 34(3): 1–15.

[7] A. Nouri, E. K. (2009). Elastoplastic modelling of sand production using fracture energy regularization method. Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology. 48(4): 64–71.

[8] A. Ghassemi, A. (2015). Numerical simulation of sand production using a coupled lattice Boltzmann- DEM, Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering. 54(1): 218-231.

[9] A. Hauwa Christiana, A. (2015). Sand control using geomechanical techniques: a case study of Niger delta, Nigeria, Journal of science inventions today. 5(1): 439-450.

[10] A. lues, E. L. R. C. (2011). Numerical analysis of sand/solids production in boreholes consideringfluid mechanical coupling in a Cosserat continuum. International Journal of Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences. 48(8): 1303-1312.

[11] A. Zervos, P. P. (2001). Modelling of localisation and scale effect in thick-walled cylinders with gradient elastoplasticity. International Journal of Solids and Structures. 38(30): 5081–5095.

[12] A. Zervos, P. P. (a-2001). A finite element displacement formulation for gradient elastoplasticity. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering. 50(6): 1369–1388.

[13] A. Yuonessi, V. B. (2013). Sand production simulation under true - triaxial stress conditions. International Journal of Rock Mechanics and mining Science. 61: 130-140.

[14] Asgian, M. P. (1995). Mechanical stability of propped hydraulic fractures: A numerical study. Journal of Petroleum Technology. 47(3): 203-208.

[15] Bradley, H. (1987). Society of Petroleum Engineers. In Petroleum Engineering Hand Book.

[16] Bratli, R. A. (1981).Stability and failure of sand arches. SPEJ, 236-248.

[16] C. Yufi, A. E. (2016). A new approach to dem simulation of sand production. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering. 147: 56-67.

[17] Cook BK, Lee MY, Digiovanni AA, Bronowski DR, Perkins ED, and Williams JR. (2004). Discrete element modeling applied to laboratory simulation of near-wellbore mechanics. Int J Geomech. 4: 9–27.

[18] Li L, Papamichos E and Cerasi P. A study of mechanisms of sand production using DEM with ﬂuid ﬂow. In: Cotthem AV, editor. Proceedings of the Eurock 06.

[19] Ehsan Khamehchi, E. R. (2015). Sand production prediction using ratio of shear modulus to bulk compressibility (case study), Egyptian. Journal of Petroleum. 24(2): 113-118.

[20] Farhad Gharagheizi, A. M. M. (2016). Prediction of sand production onset in petroleum reservoirs using a reliable classification approach. Petroleum. 3(2): 1-6.

[21] Sanei M, Duran O, and Devloo PRB. (2017). Finite element modeling of a non-linear poromechanic deformation in porous media. In Proceedings of the XXXVIII Iberian Latin American Congress on Computational Methods in Engineering. 10.20906/CPS/CILAMCE2017-0418.

[22] Duran O, Sanei M, Devloo PRB, and Santos ESR. (2020). An enhanced sequential fully implicit scheme for reservoir geomechanics. Comput Geosci 24(4):1557–1587.

[23] Sanei M, Durán O, Devloo PRB, and Santos ESR. (2021). Analysis of pore collapse and shear-enhanced compaction in hydrocarbon reservoirs using coupled poro-elastoplasticity and permeability. Arab J Geosci. 14(7).

[24] Sanei M, Durán O, Devloo PRB, and Santos ESR (2022) Evaluation of the impact of strain-dependent permeability on reservoir productivity using iterative coupled reservoir geomechanical modeling. Geomech Geophy Geo Energy Geo Res. 54(2).

[25] Abdollahipour A, Kargar A , and Fatehi Marji M. (2023). Numerical modeling of the effect of Anderson's stress regimes on the volume of sand production in oil wellbores. Journal of Analytical and Numerical Methods in Mining Engineering. 13(35): 31-38.

[26] Abdollahipour A and Fatehi Marji M.(2023). Numerical modeling of borehole breakouts formation in various stress fields using a Higher-Order Displacement Discontinuity Method (HODDM). JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM GEOMECHANICS. 4(3): 1-18.

[27] Yousefian H, Soltanian H, Fatehi Marji M, Abdollahipour A, and Pourmazaheri Y. (2018). Numerical simulation of a wellbore stability in an Iranian oilfield utilizing core data. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering. 168: 577-592.

[28] H. Rahmati, A. N. (2011). Validation of predicted cumulative sand and sand rate against physical-model test. Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology. 51(5): 403–410.

[29] Hossein Rahmati, M. J. (2013). Review of Sand Production Prediction Models. Journal of Petroleum Engineering.

[30] Ispas, I. R. (2002). Prediction and evaluation of sanding and casing deformation in a GOM shelf well. Proceedings of SPE/ISRM Rock Mechanics Conference. Irving،Texas،USA.

[31] Natalia Climent Pera (2016). A Coupled CFD-DEM Model for Sand Production in Oil Wells. Ph.D. thesis, Barcelona, September 2016.

[32] Siavash Ashoori, M. M. (2014). Prediction of critical flow rate for preventing sand production using the mogi-coulomb failure criterion, Sci.Int (Lahore). 26(5): 2029-2032.

[33] Taghilou M and Rahimian MH. (2015). Simulation of 2D droplet penetration in porous media using lattice Boltzmann method. Modares Mech Eng. 3: 43-56.

[34] Z. M. Zhu, W. T. Xu, and R. Q. Feng. (2015). A new method for measuring mode-I dynamic fracture toughness of rock under blasting loads. Experimental Techniques.112

[35] Gago, P.A., Raeini, A.Q., and King, P. (2020). A spatially resolved ﬂuid-solid interaction model for dense granular packs/soft-sand. Adv. Water Resour. 136: 103454.

[36] Garolera, D., Carol, I., and Papanastasiou, P. (2019). Micro-mechanical analysis of sand production. Int. J. Numer. Anal. Methods GeoMech. 43: 1207-1229.

[37] Zheng, H., Pu, C., Wang, Y., and Sun, C. (2020). Experimental and Numerical Investigation on Inﬂuence of Pore-Pressure Distribution on Multi-Fractures. Tight Sandstone Engineering Fracture Mechanics, 106993.

[38] Speight, J.G. (2020). Petroleum and Oil Sand Exploration and Production Fossil Energy.17-45.

[39] Sun, S., Zhou, M., Lu, W., and Davarpanah, A. (2020). Application of symmetry law in numerical modeling of hydraulic fracturing by ﬁnite element method. Symmetry.12 (7):11-22.

[40] Fattahpour V, Moosavi M, and Mehranpour M.(2012). An experimental investigation on the effect of rock strength and perforation size on sand production. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering. (86-87): 172-189.

[41] Fattahpour V, Moosavi M, and Mehranpour M (2012). An experimental investigation on the effect of grain size on oil-well sand production. Petroleum Science. (9): 343-353.

[42] Veeken, C., Davies, D., Kenter, C., and Kooijman, A. (1991). Sand production prediction review: Developing an integrated approach. 66th Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Dallis, US. SPE 22792.

[43] Al-Shaaibi, S.K., Al-Ajmi, A.M., and Al-Wahaibi, Y. (2013). Three-dimensional modeling for predicting sand production. J. Pet. Sci. Eng. 109: 348–363.

[44] Papamichos, E. (2006). Sand production: Physical and experimental evidence. Special issue of Revue européenne de génie civil, 10(6-7): 803-816.

[45] Papamichos, E., Tronvoll, J., Skjaerstein, A., and Unander, T. E. (2010). Hole stability of Red Wildmoor sandstone under anisotropic stresses and sand production criterion. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering. 72: 78-92.

[46] Jinwei Fu, Haeri H, Sarfarazi V, Naderi A, Jahanmiri SH, Jafari J, and Fatehi Marji M.(2023). Failure mechanism of circlular tunnel supported by concrete layers under uniaxial compression: Numerical simulation and experimental test. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics. 125: 103839.

[47] Lei Zhou, Haeri H, Sarfarazi V, Abharian S, Khandelwal M, and Fatehi Marji M.(2023). Experimental test and PFC3D simulation of the effect of a hole on the tensile behavior of concrete: A comparative analysis of four different hole shapes. Journal of Mechanics-based Design of Structures and Machines. 1-23.

[48] Emami Meybodi E, Hussain SK, and Fatehi Marji M. (2023). Experimental Evaluation and Discrete Element Modeling of Shale Delamination Mechanism. Journal of Mining and Environment.

Discrete Elements Analysis of Sand Production Mechanism in Oil Well Considering Effects of in-situ Stress and Fluid Pressure

References

References

Volume 15, Issue 4October 2024Pages 1509-1525

Volume 15, Issue 4
October 2024
Pages 1509-1525