Experimental study on sand production characteristics in natural gas hydrate deposits

Abstract

During the process of natural gas hydrate exploitation, the cementation state of the stratum changes due to the decomposition of skeleton hydrate. Fine sand in the reservoir will migrate to the wellbore with the fluid, which is the so-called sand production phenomenon. Sand production will bring great harm to hydrate exploitation. In this paper, a set of visualized sand production simulator was designed to obtain the factors influencing the sand production characteristics in different working conditions. It is found that fine sand will invade and block the gravel layer and it is accompanied by the subsidence of the sand layer. Fluid flow rate and initial hydrate saturation are important factors affecting the characteristics of sand production. In addition, it is of certain guiding significance to select the appropriate median diameter ratio of gravel to sand for sand control in the actual exploitation process.