Tunu and Tambora gas fields are located in the Mahakam river delta in the province of East Kalimantan, Indonesia. The fields consist of wet gas bearing sand bodies over a height of 13000 ft. The main producing zones are developed by intensive drilling with wells simply completed to allow a bottom up perforation strategy. The main objective is gas production from the deeper Main Zone layers. The shallow reservoirs prone to sand production are not primarily targeted. When sand production after additional perforation is observed, gas production is normally limited to maximum sand free rates or the wells are shut in to avoid damage to surface equipment.

Sand consolidation has been used as a sand control method since the 1940’s. However, it had never been attempted in operator’s fields in Indonesia. To author’s knowledge sand consolidation is not commonly used in South East Asia, in general. Unlike widely used conventional sand control methods this alternative method allows production from sand prone reservoirs while maintaining full wellbore access below treated zones.

The treatments presented in this paper were to validate sand consolidation as a viable sand control option in operator’s fields in the Mahakam Delta, utilizing new internally catalyzed epoxy consolidation fluid. The treatments were performed with 1.75’’ coil tubing and a packer. To date three Tunu/Tambora wells have been treated. The treated reservoirs have been producing without sand production after treatment. This paper describes candidate selection, job execution and treatment results.

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