The chemical sand consolidation methods involve pumping of chemical materials, like furan resin and silicate non-polymer materials into unconsolidated sandstone formations, in order to minimize sand production with the fluids produced from the hydrocarbon reservoirs. The injected chemical material, predominantly polymer, bonds sand grains together, lead to higher compressive strength of the rock. Hence, less amounts of sand particles are entrained in the produced fluids. However, the effect of this bonding may impose a negative impact on the formation productivity due to the reduction in rock permeability. Therefore, it is always essential to select a chemical material that can provide the highest possible compressive strength with minimum permeability reduction. This review article discusses the chemical materials used for sand consolidation and presents an in-depth evaluation between these materials to serve as a screening tool that can assist in the selection of chemical sand consolidation material, which in turn, helps optimize the sand control performance. The review paper also highlights the progressive improvement in chemical sand consolidation methods, from using different types of polymers to nanoparticles utilization, as well as track the impact of the improvement in sand consolidation efficiency and production performance. Based on this review, the nanoparticle-related martials are highly recommended to be applied as sand consolidation agents, due to their ability to generate acceptable rock strength with insignificant reduction in rock permeability.

This study was carried out in the Pliocene interval of the southern North Sea F3 Block in the Netherlands. This research paper demonstrates how an integrated interpretation of geological information using seismic attributes, sequence stratigraphic interpretation and Wheeler transformation methods allow for the accurate interpretation of the depositional environment of a basin, as well as locating seismic geomorphological features. The methodology adopted here is to generate a 3D dip-steered HorizonCube followed by chronostratigraphic analysis, 3D Wheeler transformation, and system tract interpretation. A dip-steered seismic attribute (similarity, dip, and curvature) was performed on each stratigraphic surface of interest and the isopach maps were generated for each stratigraphic surface to help identify the maximum deposition. The results of this study show that the similarity attribute is able to identify distinct stratigraphic features such as sand-waves and deep marine meandering channels. However, its lateral continuity is poorly understood, as the similarity attribute does not take into account the true geological dip and curvature of the surfaces. Structural features such as faults are not easily recognizable due to these reasons. However, the dip-apparent attributes are found to be very useful in identifying both the structural and stratigraphic features. The seismic dip map is then improved by rotating the dip measurements to user-defined azimuths. Such optimization has revealed the structural and stratigraphic features that are not clearly evident on the similarity and curvature attributes. The maximum curvature attribute is found to be useful in delineating faults and predicting the orientation and distribution of fractures and also in subtle structural features.