System and method for controlling flow through a sand screen

Abstract

A system and methodology utilizes a technique for filtering sand; distributing a flow of fluid; e.g. distributing an inflow of gas or condensate; and limiting the potential for erosion of completion components in a wellbore. The technique may be useful in production applications, but the technique also can be used in fluid injection applications, e.g. gas injection applications. The technique employs a base pipe and a sand screen surrounding the base pipe. The base pipe comprises a plurality of flow restriction openings of reduced size and deployed in a selected pattern along the base pipe. The size and arrangement of the flow restriction openings reduces the peak flux of radial fluid flow through the sand screen to a rate less than a sand screen erosion rate.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.