Modeling Sand Occurrence in Petroleum Production

This paper presents an advanced model to predict sand occurrence and accurately estimate volumetric sand produced in petroleum production. The sand factors K_s(t), derived from the linear time combination of likelihood of occurrence λ_m(t) of K_RS and K_FS, were used to determine sand occurrence and estimate its volumetric production around well bore systems. Therefore, the measured laboratory and field log core data of elastic properties were simulated for the mechanical and hydrodynamic decementation at unobserved multiple field locations of equiprobable realizations. The critical limits for mechanical rock failure and hydrodynamic sand production were defined at sand factors equal to 1 in absolute terms. The sand model results show two distinct gradient points observed for laboratory plots of sand elastic properties: core displacement length defined as the loading point of mechanical rock failure and the flooding point for hydrodynamic fluidized incipient sand production. However, plots of elastic properties with the core length for field case show significant deviations with multiple loading rock failure and flooding sand production points most likely caused by the complex nature of rock matrix heterogeneity for the fields studied.