Surej

Surej Kumar Subbiah, Root Cause and Mitigation for Sand Production

Based in Doha, Qatar, Surej Kumar Subbiah is Technical & Geomechanics Advisor for Schlumberger Middle East. In his 26-year career, Surej has been involved in many applied geomechanics and reservoir geomechanics projects from well centric to 3D field scale.

Explain the topic of your SPE lecture.

“Sandstone reservoir rock is made of grains of minerals that are cemented together. In the oilfield, sand production can be described as hydrocarbon fluid production accompanied by sand particles. The root cause of sand production is failure of the reservoir rock. Evaluating the mechanism of this failure in a reservoir, and mitigating it, can reduce unwanted events and decrease costs. It can make a substantial impact on the economics of a field development, especially in high-cost deepwater environments.”

Why have you chosen this lecture topic at this time?

“Every location I have visited has faced sand production challenges. Several of our customers are engaging closely with us for ideas about what they should do. More than 60% of oil and gas reservoirs are sandstone and 50% of the wells drilled in sandstone reservoirs have sand production challenges. Reservoir pressure depletion increases the sand production risk, and since most old reservoirs worldwide are depleting and maturing, proper sanding evaluation is key for better workover planning and better completion design for any new infill wells.

I am currently pursuing a research project related to this topic and working with our geomechanics software portfolio team. The ideas are there. We just have a lot more work that can and needs to be done.”

How does this topic factor into Schlumberger as a technology leader?

“Schlumberger has invested a lot into sand production research. We have developed techniques to predict sand failure that are unique in the industry. Our approach is holistic, and this has been implemented as Sand Production Prediction software which we are providing commercially.”