Effect of Flow through Porous Media on Sanding Phenomena in Poorly Consolidated Reservoirs

Ministry of Education and Science grant for young scientists 2020-2022

Vast majority of the world’s petroleum reserves are found in poorly consolidated or unconsolidated formations, which are prone to sand production, requires millions of dollars each year for operational expenditures. Similarly, oilfields confined to the shallow sandstone reservoirs in Kazakhstan, such as Karazhanbas, North Buzachi, Kenkiak, Moldabek and others have sand production problem. Despite extensive research had been conducted on sand production problem, the exact mechanisms are still not fully understood. The aim of the project is to study the effect of flow on sand production process from a hole in a weak sandstone sample using numerical methods and experimental tools. Sand production experiments on artificial sandstones will be conducted to replicate reservoir conditions. Numerical modeling of porous media using coupled technique of Discrete-Element-Method (DEM) and Computational-Fluid-Dynamics (CFD) will be used to model a sand production behavior in a weak sandstone.

In 2013 with the Collective effort, oil and gas industry identified the most challenging issued in the industry in Kazakhstan, in which sand control has been also listed to be number 11 major technical challenges for the Kazakhstani petroleum industry s in the 2025 horizon R&D roadmap of the oil-gas industries in Kazakhstan (Collective industry effort, 2013). Finding a solution to this challenge will results in the financial reward to Kazakhstan of around US $2.5 billion.

We expect numerical simulations of the proposed problems and experimental result to form scientifically sound design framework. In 2021, a numerical simulation of the geomechanical impact on sand production was carried out in a combination of CFD and DEM for single-phase and two-phase media, methods of scaling and time discretization were studied, and an experiment on sand production was conducted.