Abstract
Sand production can pose a significant threat to asset integrity, hydrocarbon control and availability of production. As a result sand management is crucial to protecting commercial interest, safety and the environment. Most of the sand production problems tend to be found in relatively shallow reservoir sands that tend to be unconsolidated. The propensity for sand erosion is exacerbated in ultra high rate gas wells where fluid velocities are typically very high.
The Kapok Field is such an example with reservoirs and fluid velocity that are prone to incipient sand production. Surrounding field history and an appraisal drill stem test (DST) results indicate that sand control will be a major challenge to delivering full well potential thereby maximizing the value of the field reserves. This risk was addressed in all phases of the development from appraisal drilling, to the front-end engineering design and the operation of the field. As a result, the plan of development for the Kapok field ensured that sand production was taken into consideration and therefore measures were put in place to manage sand spanning from well placement in the reservoir and well completion design, topside installation of wear monitors on all chokes, the implementation of two independent types of sand detection systems as redundancy, and managing the field through focused well operating guidelines and adhering to a reservoir surveillance plan.
Kapok Field production is on plateau delivering 1.1 Bcfd of gas and approximately 10,000 barrels of condensate per day that will be exported off the Kapok unmanned satellite platform. Customers requiring this daily volume of gas need the assurance that this gas deliverability is not threatened in any way and gas suppliers need to ensure that this deliverability is not compromised such that both parties maximizes return on their investment in a cost effective manner.
