SAND MANAGEMENT APPROACH FOR SELECTED NIGER DELTA WELLS

ABSTRACT

Sand production is a major issue during oil and gas production from unconsolidated reservoirs in the Niger Delta. This paper evaluates the performance of two chemicals and control methods; sand consolidation (SCON) and internal gravel packing (IGP) based on their performance, effectiveness, and durability. The study is concerned with the causes, the reason for sanitization, the effects, and the best completion techniques to minimize sander problems in the well. The results of this comparative study of SCON and IGP are compared using key well performance indicators such as WIQI, effectiveness and durability of the control methods. It was found that SCON wells have better performance than that of IGP wells. In addition, it is also found that IGP is more durable and effective than SCON. Therefore, I, recommend that the internal gravel pack (i.e., IGP) technique be preferred to the SCON technique to reduce the permeability of the wells and because wells installed with SCON have lowered permeabilities than wells installed with IGP which means that productivity would be better in wells placed with SCON.