A client wanted to utilize our Desanders for drill out operations. The flowback separator was bypassed during the drill out because of fear of sand erosion. For the operation, cast plugs would be drilled out 5-6 at a time with a bottoms-up circulation after the set of drilling (each set of 5-6 plugs).
We set two SDI model 62020 Desanders in parallel so that we could clean one of the Desanders while the other one was filling with sand.
The drillout operation brought sand up in slugs of up to 6,000 lbs at a time when the well was circulated bottoms up, with a more consistent sand rate of 10-100 lbs/hr while the plugs were being drilled.
We performed over 80 cleanouts in five and a half days and in total stopped approximately 100,000 lbs of sand.
