Preventing Proppant Flowback from Stimulated Zones
Magill, Douglas1, Muthukumarappan “Kumar” Ramurthy2,
and Philip Duke Nguyen3
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