Flowback of proppant and formation sand often poses serious challenges to operating companies when these solids cause equipment damage, costly and frequent cleanup treatments, and production decreases. These flowback problems are often compounded in severity in wells with production of heavy oil and high water cuts. Once the proppant is produced out, there is no mechanical means to keep the unconsolidated sand in the perforations or behind the casing in place. Similarly, formation sand from the perforations not aligned with the propped fractures produces out freely during well production once the proppant filling the perforation tunnels produces out. To combat the proppant and sand-production problems and revive the production of wells that have been shut in because of solids production, field trials of an on-the-fly coating, curable resin system were performed to determine whether this resin system is a viable solid flowback control that can provide an effective means to establish screenless completions in this field. This paper presents the results of these field trials involving the screenless completions using the on-the-fly, curable resincoating system in treating the proppant. Detailed descriptions of the completion procedures, challenges and difficulties, and lessons learned during the course of these hydraulic-fracturing treatments are presented. Field results indicate this on-the-fly, resin-coating treatment effectively stops the proppant and formation sand from producing back while allowing the production rates to be maintained as designed. The process has drastically decreased the number of solids-cleanout workovers in the treated wells compared to the offset wells in the same field in which the resin treatments were not performed. The resin treatment provides a reliable and cost-effective alternative in marginal reservoirs, eliminating the need for sand-control screens and providing access to other intervals, when needed, without wellbore restrictions.
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