Preventing Proppant Flowback from Stimulated Zones

Magill, Douglas¹, Muthukumarappan “Kumar” Ramurthy², and Philip Duke Nguyen^3
1Halliburton Energy Services Group, Farmington, NM
²Halliburton Energy Services, Denver, CO
³Halliburton Energy Services, Duncan, OK

     Post stimulation proppant flowback has been a major issue in both conventional and unconventional reservoirs. In coalbed methane (CBM) wells that are on pumps this could lead to wellbore downtimes as the pumps can get sanded off. This is very costly as not only the operator is losing production but also replacing the pumps repeatedly can be expensive. The solution to this uncontrolled sand production is to clean the well with a workover rig; identify the zone (or zones) from which the sand is being produced, isolate the zone (or zones) and pump a remedial proppant flowback control treatment. This proprietary low viscosity proppant consolidation treatment can be pumped via either jointed tubing or coil-tubing technology, regardless of interval length or number of intervals, without affecting or reducing the conductivity of the proppant pack. It coats the individual grains of proppant and locks them in place.
     Ten wells (8 CBM) with different downhole conditions in the San Juan and Raton basins, where frac sand production was a major problem, were treated with this technology and in all of them proppant flowback stopped. This study will discuss the criteria for identifying candidates; optimal placement; lessons learned and the successful results from these 10 treatments.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90071 © 2007 AAPG Rocky Mountain Meeting, Snowbird, Utah