For control of formation sand production in California oil wells, the technique of open-hole viscous gravel packing is now being considered for long intervals of 1,500 feet to 2,000 feet. To effectively apply these high viscosity, high gravel concentration slurry packs, the designs and procedures used for the more common, short-interval treatments can he adopted if they are modified. A complete, step-by-step procedure for this technique and the pros and cons of various tools and methods are presented in this paper. Also, 13 case histories were chosen from among several hundred California slurry pack jobs for investigation. Case history data indicates that long-interval, slurry-pack completions are most successful when several considerations are taken into account. Among these considerations are (1) the effects of pack settling when choosing liner design; (2) the need of whether or not to use a seal bore and a lower, tell-tale screen; and (3) the percentage of calculated fill that should be in place prior to concluding gravel packing operations.

Keywords:
operation, displacement, carrier fluid, pipe, spe 10173, slurry, operator, long interval, gravel size, gravel
Subjects:
Drillstring Design, Drilling Operations, Drilling Fluids and Materials, Well & Reservoir Surveillance and Monitoring, Formation Evaluation & Management, Gravel pack design & evaluation, Completion Selection and Design, Completion Installation and Operations, Sand Control, Completion Operations
Copyright 1981, Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME
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