Study on Critical Drawdown Pressure of Sanding for Wellbore of Underground Gas Storage in a Depleted Gas Reservoir

Rui Song, Ping Zhang, Xiaomin Tian, Famu Huang, Zhiwen Li and Jianjun Liu
Additional contact information
Rui Song: State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China
Ping Zhang: PipeChina West East Gas Pipeline Company, Shanghai 200120, China
Xiaomin Tian: PipeChina West East Gas Pipeline Company, Shanghai 200120, China
Famu Huang: PipeChina West East Gas Pipeline Company, Shanghai 200120, China
Zhiwen Li: PipeChina West East Gas Pipeline Company, Shanghai 200120, China
Jianjun Liu: State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 16, 1-18

Abstract: Accurately predicting the critical differential pressure (CDP) of sand production contributes to improving the peak-shaving capacity and ensuring safe operation of underground gas storage (UGS). The CDP of sanding production in the target wells of the UGS was predicted coupling laboratory tests, inversed analysis with well logging data and numerical simulations. The in-situ mechanical properties of rock were estimated by coupling the laboratory test results and well-logging data. The in-situ stress field of the target formation was then deduced through inversed analysis coupled finite element method (FEM) and genetic algorithm (GA), based on the existing known stress data and the seismic data of the measured points. Using the critical strain limit (CSL) of 5‰ as the sanding criterion of the wellbore, the CDPs of the gas production in the UGS were predicted, which was 5.59 MPa, 3.98 MPa, and 4.01 MPa for well #1, well #2 and well #3, when the pressure of the gas storage was 30 MPa, respectively. The simulation results showed good agreements with the field-measured benchmark data of well #2 and well #3. The effects of moisture contents (ranging from 10 to ~40%), and cycling times of gas injection and withdrawal (ranging from 40 to ~200 cycling times) on the critical differential pressure were simulated and analyzed. The results indicated that the CDP decreased with an increase of the moisture content and the cycling times. This study provides a reliable tool for the sanding prediction of the wellbore in the UGS.

Keywords: sanding prediction; underground gas storage; depleted gas reservoir; inversed analysis; in-situ crustal stress; critical differential pressure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/16/5913/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/16/5913/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:16:p:5913-:d:888644

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().