Numerical modeling of massive sand production during cold heavy oil production
ilustraciones, diagramas Cold heavy oil production with sand (CHOPS) is a single well technology that involves the deliberate initiation and sustaining of sand inflow into the wells using progressive cavity pumps (PCP) to produce at oil high rates with a subsequent high-pressure drawdown around the...
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| Other Authors: | , , , , |
| Format: | Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Universidad Nacional de Colombia
2023
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://repositorio.unal.edu.co/handle/unal/83940 https://repositorio.unal.edu.co/ |
| Summary: | ilustraciones, diagramas Cold heavy oil production with sand (CHOPS) is a single well technology that involves the deliberate initiation and sustaining of sand inflow into the wells using progressive cavity pumps (PCP) to produce at oil high rates with a subsequent high-pressure drawdown around the wellbore and improvement in oil well productivity. CHOPS is a primary recovery method extensively used in the world as a profitable and simple technology. Foamy-oil flow and wormhole formation are the main mechanisms of CHOPS, where aggressive sand production is a consequence of geomechanical issues such as elastoplastic behavior, stress redistribution, failure criteria, pressure gradient, erosion, and sand liquefaction. The general objective of this thesis is to build a numerical model to predict and explain massive sand production during cold heavy oil production by coupling fluid flow with geomechanics and considering stress redistribution and erosional processes. This research also identifies the relevant phenomena of massive sand production and describes the interaction between geomechanical and erosional processes. A methodology is proposed to model the initiation and propagation of wormholes based on geomechanical behavior. A 3D-single well model is built to understand the cold heavy oil production with sand, considering relevant dynamics such as stress redistribution and the interaction between geomechanical and erosional processes, by coupling fluid flow with geomechanics. This model couples a three-phase fluid flow model and an elastoplastic model and integrates other models: a sand production model, a foamy-oil module, and a conceptual model for wormhole formation. This coupled model is verified and validated firstly by components and lately integrating step by step the different components using commercial software such as ABAQUS® and CMG®. Field cases are run to calibrate the parameters of the sand production model resulting in low sand levels, a case with the main characteristics of a CHOPS well is run ... |
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