Development and Performance Test of Foamed Metal Sand Control Screen

The stand-alone and gravel packing sand control methods are commonly used in offshore oil and gas fields.Stand-alone sand control is mainly used for reservoirs with good physical properties while gravel packing sand control is applied for reservoirs with poor physical properties. For the reservoirs with medium physical property, stand-alone sand control has risk of failure, and gravel packing sand control is somewhat wasteful.In this paper, a kind of foamed metal sand control screen was developed by studying the sand retention mechanism of foamed metal material with three-dimensional structure.Through indoor performance test and downhole field trial, it is proved that the foam metal screen has good sand retaining performance, flowing ability, anti-plugging and anti-erosion capacity. The foamed metal sand control screen provides a new method of sand control for offshore oil and gas field development.