Novel Approach in Sand Production Management - Produce It!

Specifically in the upstream sector of oil and gas industry, sand production is a common associated production problem anywhere around the world. Various phases of sand production related businesses have been growing very fast. Various parties such as universities, chemical and equipment manufacturers, service companies and field operators have been working on the sand production issue intensively. While R&D mostly involves academia and chemical and equipment manufacturers, the service companies and field operators would collaborate in field trials and pilot projects. Continuous feedback from the field operators is very important in order to improve the quality and performance of any specific sand control product. Initially a field operator might not be interested in the sand production related issue if there is no such problem in its field. However, once the sand production is detected then all sort of reactions come alive. The sand production if not managed properly will result in significant impact to the well (and field) life, be it reduced productivity, completion premature failure, erosion to the surface equipment and HSE issues including asset integrity and managing environmental impact. All of these effects will somehow or at the end impacting the operator financially, which could have been avoided if the sand issue be taken care of much earlier especially during the field development stage. As seen or heard many times, cost savings were only realized during the development phase of the field but when it came into the production phase, the sand management cost and impact are much greater than the initial cost savings. This is the risk many field operators have been considering nowadays.