STUDY ON SAND PRODUCTION IN A NATURAL GAS HYDRATE PRODUCTION WELL

Natural gas hydrate has been proved significant as a kind of unconventional energy source. However, the sand production from gas hydrate-bearing deposits has remained a nightmare to the commercial development of the resource. The northern slope of the South China Sea is an important natural gas hydrate area in China. The natural gas hydrate there is distributed mainly in a scattered pattern by weakly cemented deposits and it really is urgent to study the mechanism of sand production for sustainable development of the resource. The fundamental reason of sand production is the decrease in the strength of reservoir medium, which is cemented by hydrate, and effected by the factors of hydrate saturation, pore fluid pressure, flow rate, production pressure and so on. Based on the comparison of sand production from the natural gas hydrate reservoir to the conventional oil and gas reservoir, this paper summarizes the up-to-date research results of sand production in weakly cemented sandstone reservoirs, and taking it as a reference we studied the sand production in natural gas hydrate reservoirs.