Sand production monitoring in oil and gas wells: Measurement targets, engineering roles, and scenario-based technology selection

Résumé fourni par la source

Sand production monitoring is essential for production safety, equipment integrity, and sand-management decision-making in oil and gas wells. However, existing monitoring methods target different physical quantities and stages of the sand-production process. Sampling captures transported sand particles, acoustic and vibration methods record impact-induced dynamic responses, distributed fiber-optic sensing mainly provides distributed acoustic/vibration-related anomalies, and ER/erosion probes measure local material loss. Therefore, direct comparison using a single performance indicator may lead to misleading technology assessment. This review develops a measurement-target-based framework that links sand generation, transport-impact-erosion processes, signal formation, monitoring outputs, and scenario-based technology selection. Downhole, surface, and subsea monitoring routes are compared in terms of measured quantity, calibration requirement, uncertainty source, field maturity, and decision suitability. Particular attention is given to practical limitations, including DAS interpretation uncertainty, acoustic calibration transferability, ER-probe locality, and subsea reliability constraints. An uncertainty-aware target-specific evaluation framework and a scenario-based technology-selection matrix are proposed to support method combination and decision-oriented sand management. Finally, the review discusses how monitoring data can be coupled with sanding prediction, erosion-risk assessment, safe operating-envelope updating, and choke or intervention decisions. The analysis indicates that reliable sand management benefits from calibrated, cross-validated, and decision-oriented integration of physical sampling, dynamic-response monitoring, distributed diagnostics, erosion assessment, and production data.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.