A New Model for the Prediction of Real Time Critical Drawdown Sand Failure in Petroleum Reservoirs

Petroleum producers are now realizing the risk of failure in petroleum reservoirs and consequently sand production is now a dreaded process in the industry. As a result, failure analysis of reservoirs rocks for sanding potential prediction purposes has become a routine activity more than ever before. Due to the high cost and operational and safety implications of the risk of sand failure, the efficient management of these risks for field operation optimization requires a reliable failure model. Most of the existing models failed to capture the real time failure of the reservoir's sand, and those that tried to capture the real time failure criterion required parameters that are difficult to acquire. The developed model modified the Griffitti rock failure criterion using McClintock and Walsh hypotheses to predict the current critical drawdown pressure of petroleum reservoir. The required parameters for the application of the developed model can be easily determined. The error analysis from the model in relation to the field data when compared with those of Oluyemi and Oyeneyin's model showed that the developed model gives better predicting ability.