Abstract
Hydraulic fracturing is one of the most effective methods for stimulation. At present, it is actively used around the world, as well as in our country, in Kazakhstan. Currently, many producing fields are at their advanced production stage, and new fields are in such geological conditions when hydrocarbons are extracted from tight reservoirs. Hydraulic fracturing allows maintaining the economic profitability of the development of such fields. However, like other stimulation methods, hydraulic fracturing has a number of disadvantages, including proppant flowback. Proppant flowback after hydraulic fracturing treatments is quite serious challenge. This could be the deterioration of the downhole equipment with a subsequent frequent workovers; decrease in well productivity. Some special methods including preventive as well as corrective measures already exist in the industry to overcome the proppant flowback problems. The paper considers systematization of fourteen preventive methods. Based on physical, chemical, and technological properties of each listed method, as well as the knowledge of the main reasons of the proppant flowback the authors systematize all methods and propose an initial decision-making algorithm and a matrix of methods applicability. The algorithm and the matrix were tested under conditions of Uzen field, Kazakhstan. The paper may be of interest to fracturing engineers, production engineers, operation engineers, and other professionals