FACTS

SINTEF Petroleum Research

Volumetric sand production May 2010

Advances in sand
production quantification
SINTEF develops, in this JIP funded by 5 oil companies,
models to quantitatively predict sand production in
a well under various reservoir stress conditions and
fluid flow. The participating companies are: BG, Chevron,
ConocoPhillips, Det Norske and Hess. The project is
scheduled to last 3 years (2009 - 2012).
Both laboratory experiments on field cores and numerical
simulations contribute to the development of SandPredictor,
a standalone sand production software using field data
as input. The main objective for upcoming research is to
investigate stress anisotropy influence on volumetric sand
production, as well as water and gas flow effects. Where
necessary, the volumetric sand model implemented in
SandPredictor will be adapted to cater for anisotropy, water
cut and gas flow.

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Research program: 07/2009 – 06/2012 External radial stress = 11 MPa
2

Total budget: 13.2 MNOK 1.5

Sand production [g]

Q = 2 l/min
n 800 kNOK per participant per year
1 Experiment Simulation
n 0.24 MNOK (late participant fee)
n 0.6 MNOK (entrance fee) Q = 1 l/min
0.5
Q = 0.5 l/min

Sponsored by: 0
0 500 1000 1500
BG, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Det Norske and Hess. Time [s]

Objectives:
Develop and improve SandPredictor, SINTEF’s sand initiation
and volumetric sand production prediction software, so as to
better address stress anisotropy, hole size, water flow and
water breakthrough & gas flow.
Apply to field cases, test cores and use field data provided
by the partners, to give sand mass predictions and
uncertainty estimates and compare with available sand
production data.

Deliverables:
SINTEF’s SandPredictor Upgraded Version. Stand-alone
software for sand initiation and mass prediction using field
data as input.

CONTACT
SINTEF Petroleumsforskning AS (SINTEF Petroleum Research) Project Manager Pierre Cerasi
POB 4763 Sluppen, NO-7465 Trondheim, Norway Cellphone: +47 99340928
Phone: + 47 73 59 11 00, www.sintef.no/petroleum e-mail: Pierre.Cerasi@sintef.no