PRODUCTION ENGINEERING

GROUP 6
TITTLE: SAND PRODUCTION IMPACT ON
SEPARATION PROCESS

LECTURER: PROF DR ARIFFIN BIN SAMSURI

DR SHAZIERA BINTI OMAR

NAME METRIC NUMBER

ZULHAIKAL ZIKRI BIN A16KT0473
ZULKIFLI
SYED MUHAMMAD AIZAT
BIN SYED MOHD HAKHIRI
KEN HARITH BIN
SIMPOH@WILFRED
SHAHAFIZI BIN SAMSUL A16KT0383

MUHAMMAD AIMAN BIN

YAACOB
ABSTRACT

Separator is one of surface facilities that are essential in oil and gas production. During
production period, the produced fluids will entering this separator to separate them into their
single component whether 2 phase or 3 phase separation. However, during production period,
the sand will also be produced from the formation and if the flow velocity in tubing is higher,
the sand will reach the surface equipment. This is inconvenience the whole system of oil and
gas production since the sand produced will accumulate in the separator and reduced the
efficiency of separation process. A very careful analysis on this problem need to be done to
make sure the equipment can have long life and the produced fluids will have a minimum
amount of unwanted solids. The goal of this study was to design a solution by using a better
approach in tackling this problem without affecting the production, thus saving time and
money.
INTRODUCTION

An oil/gas separator is a pressure vessel used for separating a well stream into gaseous and
liquid components. They are installed either in an onshore processing station or on an
offshore platform. Based on the vessel configurations, the oil/gas separators can be divided
into horizontal, vertical, or spherical separators. In teams of fluids to be separated, the oil/gas
separators can be grouped into gas/liquid two-phase separator or oil/gas/water three-phase
separator.

Based on separation function, the oil/gas separators can also classified into primary phase
separator, test separator, high-pressure separator, low-pressure separator, deliquilizer,
degasser, etc. To meet process requirements, the oil/gas separators are normally designed in
stages, in which the first stage separator is used for priliminary phase separation, while the
second and third stage separator are applied for further treatment of each individual phase
(gas, oil and water). Depending on a specific application, oil/gas separators are also called
deliquilizer or degasser. The deliquilizers are used to remove dispersed droplets from a bulk
gas stream; while the degassers are designed to remove contaimined gas bubbles from the
bulk liquid stream.

The efficiency of this separator are widely depends on several factors, but in our case, we will
focus on sand production. Sand production observed on the surface occurs as a series of three
events that happen at downhole area which are formation failure, follow by sand erosion due
to hydrocarbon flow and lastly sand transport.

In subsurface, formation sand is acted by in situ stress and pore pressure and under certain
condition; the criteria for failure are met. The presence of the wellbore and perforations
causes a concentration of stresses near these cavities and deformation and failure can occur
under certain well-known conditions. This criterion is bottomhole pressure that makes the
maximum effective tangential compressive stress equal or higher than the rock strength
(failure criteria); significant sanding begins at some point (the onset).

Damaged regions that have failed (meeting the failure criteria) face additional stresses caused
by pore pressure gradients. The process of sand erosion is essential for the sand to be
removed from the failed region and then to be entrained with the fluid. Sand erosion detaches
sand grains into a perforating cavity or wellbore and some of them are transported to the
surface while others settle into the perforation tunnel or into the well hole.

From these three events, the sand will reach the surface facilities and cause bad impacts on
separation process. One of the impacts is that the sand will fill up the separator and hence
reduced the oil rates from the oil outlet. After that, accumulation of sand in separators may
cause reduced separation efficiency and carry-over of sand to downstream systems that are
not designed for or have little tolerance to sand. Sand accumulation in a separator also
decreases fluid resident time and causes poor separator performance.

Other than that, solids cause multiple problems in gravity-based production separators. Large
solids (>50 µm) settle in separating vessels, reducing throughput and residence time. Periodic
shutdown for manual solids removal is required to restore production rate. Settled solids form
a layer on which sulfate-reducing bacteria grow, which can enhance corrosion rates. Small
solids (10–30 µm) may report to the oil/water interface where they stabilize emulsions,
further reducing separator efficiency. Large solids that travel through the separator report to
the water treating system, in which they fill up flotation cells, erode deoiling hydrocyclones,
increase oil-in-water content, and plug injection wells.

The objective of this paper is to provide solutions for preventing the sand produced enter the
separator in order to optimize the separator efficiency. This paper mainly focusing on well
head desander; surface equipment used to separate solid from the hydrocarbon just before it
enter the separator.

Figure 1: This figure shows accumulation of sand in separator

LITERATURE REVIEW

Operational experience from many fields suggests that sand is produced along with oil
and gas from the reservoir that have relatively lower formation strength. The presence of sand
impacts several design and operational aspect of the production system due to the potential of
erosion, corrosion and accumulation of sand in pipelines and separators (Mamdouh M.
Salama, 2000). Sand production can have significant consequences for production and assets.
Key failure modes are related to erosion, sand accumulation, plugging or contamination by
sand. For the majority of oil & gas fields, sand from the reservoir formation is an inevitable
by-product (DNVGL-RP-0501, 2015).

Theory of sand production, two types of failure are dominant during sand problems:
shear and tensile failure. If flow rate is large, tensile failure sand problems occur. However, if
the bottom hole pressure is decreased, shear failure sand problem becomes dominant. For
flow-cycled wells, the formation around the perforation cavity losses cohesion due to shear
micro crack growth, resulting in the shift of tensile failure curve to the left. The loss of
capillary pressure reduces the cohesion of sand grains, which significantly affects the tensile
failure (N. Morita and P.A. Boyd, 1991).

Integrated Sand Production Risk Management. The input data, the first major step to
implement Sand Management is a thorough gathering of historical field data and the planning
of future data acquisition. Depending on which analyses to conduct and models to apply, a
variety of input data is needed (J. Tronvoll, 2001). Quantification of sand production risk,
sanding risk is perceived as the risk of reaching the operative conditions at which sand begins
to enter into the wellbore. It is implicitly assumed that sand will eventually cause unbearable
problems and that no effective action can be taken to cope with it but to avoid the sand inflow
(M.B. Dusseault, 2001).

Predicting sand production onset, this is the classical sand prediction exercise, where
critical conditions for a given combination of well and reservoir pressures for different strata
are determined. Models based on depth-indexed data provide a continuous log in terms of
critical drawdown or depletion (i.e. beyond which sand production will occur) with respect to
onset of sand production (F. Sanfilippo, 2001).

Sand Production in Injectors, if water injection does not induce high compressive
wellbore stresses, sanding problems and injectivity decline due to sand production have also
been experienced in injectors. Different mechanisms have been postulated to explain such
phenomena, including water hammer effects due to rapid shut-ins resulting in sand
liquefaction, cross-flow between layers during shut-in periods and subsequent re-injection of
sand, and unstable intrareservoir shales. The rock mechanics challenges are many when such
problems are encountered, and sand production mechanisms are certainly not the only ones
(F.J. Santarelli, 2000).
 Most sand production prediction models to date have the capability to indicate
whether initial sand production may take place somewhere during the lifetime of a reservoir.
However, these models are unable to predict whether the sand production will be
‘problematic’ (e.g. in terms of erosion, plugging, well sand-up, separator fill, etc.), in
particular for systems that have some tolerance towards sand production. In order to predict
whether sand production will be ‘problematic’, one needs to be able to estimate sand
production volumes and rates as a function of, amongst others, bottom-hole load conditions,
drawdown, and time (F. Sanfilippo, 2001).
METHODOLOGY

Facilities Sand Management Methodology

The surface facility sand management requires more than just installing a separation device.
The separated solids may need to be collected centrally, cleaned, measured, stored and
transported to a landfill site, overboard discharge, or injection disposal. Surface facilities sand
handling can be divided into five unit areas: separation, collection, cleaning, dewatering, and
transportation.

 Separation. The process of diverting both solids and fluid in a multiphase stream
towards different locations. Solids are separated from well fluids using gravity
vessels, hydrocyclones, sand traps, or filters.
 Collection. After separation, solids are collected into a central location and physically
isolated from the production process. A central location minimizes the pressure
letdown points involving sand. Collection can be accomplished with a simple device,
such as a desander accumulator vessel or a dedicated sump tank.
 Cleaning. In some locations, sand may require the cleaning of adsorbed hydrocarbons
subsequent to disposal. Dedicated sand cleaning systems are available as modular
add-on packages or integrated into the separation system.
 Dewatering. The total volume of sand slurry transported to disposal can be greatly
reduced by dewatering. This step involves removing liquids from the collected solids
slurry using filter bags or bins. The final product should have less than 10 vol%
liquid.
 Transportation. The removal, hauling, and disposal of the solids depends on the
location (land-based or offshore) and disposal requirements (injection well, overboard
discharge, or landfill). The cleaned solids may be mixed with water and disposed
overboard.

Surface facility sand management designs for both onshore and offshore fields have been
documented increasingly in the past 10 years as measures are taken to increase equipment
robustness and minimize downtime.
Hydrocyclones, also called desanders or desilters, operate by directing the water into a cone
through a tangential inlet that imparts rotational movement to the water shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

Figure 3 show a hydrocyclone cone and an assembly of eight cones.

 Figure 3

The rotary motion generates centrifugal forces toward the outside of the cone, driving the
heavy solids to the outer perimeter of the cone. Once the particles are near the wall, gravity
draws them downward to be rejected at the apex of the cone. The resulting heavy slurry is
then removed as “underflow” into the accumulator vessel.

The accumulator vessel is periodically isolated and collected solids are flushed out. The
wellhead desander itself remains online and operating while the accumulator is being
cleaned. The clear water near the center of the vortical motion is removed through an insert at
the centerline of the hydrocyclone, called a “vortex finder,” and passes out as “overflow”
through the top of the cone.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION

By using desander, solid particles from production fluid can be separated to partition
solid particles from liquid, gas, or multiphase flow to a separate stream. Unit processes
include a hydrocyclone desander (liquid or multiphase), production separator, or filter.
Hydrocyclones, also called desanders or desilters, operate by directing the water into a cone
through a tangential inlet that imparts rotational movement to the water. This process will
ensure the longivity of the surface equipment since there is minimal unwanted particles to
wear out the pipline used to carry the fluids from the subsurface.

The desander also helped to gather the partitioned solids into one central location and
remove from process pressure and flow. This is accomplished using a hydrocyclone
accumulator. This will ensure the pressure will remain constant throughout the seperating
process since the weight from the sand can effect the pressure drop from the fluid production.
This also resulted in more organized way to eliminate the unwanted sand since it will be
collected first, and transported as an “underflow” through the accumulator vessel to a waste
land.

Desander also can be use as a cleaner to remove adsorbed hydrocarbon contaminants

from sand particles using an attrition scrubbing system. This is an optional step, which is only
used to treat sand for overboard discharge. The more efficient the desander, the more
contaminants will be removed before flowing into the seperator. This will improve the quality
of the produced fluid and simplify the separation process because less sand is collected inside
the seperator.

Lastly, desander also responsible to save overall costs in the seperation process. The cost
for the maintainence of the seperator is high and can be minimized with less damage and
abuse caused from the production of sand from the wellbore. The extra corrosion from the
sand can be nullified by using desander and save other equipment and not just the seperator
since the seperation process requires more than one equipment.

To conclude, desander is a very efficient and needed in most well since sand production
is very common and one of the earliest problem encountered by the petroleum engineer.
Although there are many types of desanders, all of them share the same function which is
remove sand and improve the overall quality of produced fluid from reservoir.
CONCLUSION

Based on the analysis to solve the problems arise from the sand production during the
production process, the best method is the usage of a technology called the wellhead
desander. A wellhead desander eliminates the produced sand thus preventing the separator
from getting damaged for example corrosion. A damaged separator might greatly increase the
costs of money and time. Other than that, a wellhead desander also helps in managing the
produced fluid purity which can increase the quality of the produced fluid. It is proven that
the wellhead desander is a must in any producing well to avoid facing problems regarding the
production of sand. A wellhead desander is a key feature in making sure the production of
hydrocarbon continues. As the technology advance, there would be a more efficient desander
developed that can minimise the sand production problem. More innovations will be
implemented to the desander.

Last but not least, we must adopt new production practices for managing sand. These
involved maintaining hydrocarbons production at a level that is set over the long term to
avoid reservoir damage, rather than pushing the wells to the point where sanding occurred
followed by a break in production. As a result of adopting these recommendations, oil
production has improved and sand production has been greatly reduced. More improved sand
control techniques are being researched and developed for new and more challenging
environments.
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