Effect of Fluid Type and Multi-Phase Flow on Sand Production in Oil and Gas Wells

Author(s):  
Haotian Wang ◽  
Deepen P. Gala ◽  
Mukul M. Sharma
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 1148-1158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun-Feng Shi ◽  
Feng Deng ◽  
Li-Zhi Xiao ◽  
Hua-Bing Liu ◽  
Feng-Qin Ma ◽  
...  

Abstract In the petroleum industry, detection of multi-phase fluid flow is very important in both surface and down-hole measurements. Accurate measurement of high rate of water or gas multi-phase flow has always been an academic and industrial focus. NMR is an efficient and accurate technique for the detection of fluids; it is widely used in the determination of fluid compositions and properties. This paper is aimed to quantitatively detect multi-phase flow in oil and gas wells and pipelines and to propose an innovative method for online nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) detection. The online NMR data acquisition, processing and interpretation methods are proposed to fill the blank of traditional methods. A full-bore straight tube design without pressure drop, a Halbach magnet structure design with zero magnetic leakage outside the probe, a separate antenna structure design without flowing effects on NMR measurement and automatic control technology will achieve unattended operation. Through the innovation of this work, the application of NMR for the real-time and quantitative detection of multi-phase flow in oil and gas wells and pipelines can be implemented.


Author(s):  
Ashutosh Tewari ◽  
Stijn De Waele ◽  
Niranjan Subrahmanya

Production surveillance is the task of monitoring oil and gas production from every well in a hydrocarbon field. A key opportunity in this domain is to improve the accuracy of flow measurements per phase (oil, water, gas) from a multi-phase flow. Multi-phase flow sensors are costly and therefore not instrumented for every production well. Instead, several low fidelity surrogate measurements are performed that capture different aspects of the flow. These measurements are then reconciled to obtain per-phase rate estimates. Current practicesmay not appropriately account for the production dynamics and the sensor issues, thus, fall far short in terms of achieving a desired surveillance accuracy. To improve surveillance accuracy, we pose rate reconciliation as a state estimation problem. We begin with hypothesizing a model that describes the dynamics of production rates and their relationship with thefield measurements. The model appropriately accounts for the uncertainties in field conditions and measurements. We then develop robust probabilistic estimators for reconciliationto yield the production estimates and the uncertainties therein. We highlight recent advancements in the area of probabilistic programming that can go a long way in improving the performance and the portability of such estimators. The exposition of our methods is accompanied by experiments in a simulation environment to illustrate improved surveillance accuracy achieved in different production scenarios.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (9) ◽  
pp. 2184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lærke Skov Hansen ◽  
Simon Pedersen ◽  
Petar Durdevic

Multi-phase flow meters are of huge importance to the offshore oil and gas industry. Unreliable measurements can lead to many disadvantages and even wrong decision-making. It is especially important for mature reservoirs as the gas volume fraction and water cut is increasing during the lifetime of a well. Hence, it is essential to accurately monitor the multi-phase flow of oil, water and gas inside the transportation pipelines. The objective of this review paper is to present the current trends and technologies within multi-phase flow measurements and to introduce the most promising methods based on parameters such as accuracy, footprint, safety, maintenance and calibration. Typical meters, such as tomography, gamma densitometry and virtual flow meters are described and compared based on their performance with respect to multi-phase flow measurements. Both experimental prototypes and commercial solutions are presented and evaluated. For a non-intrusive, non-invasive and inexpensive meter solution, this review paper predicts a progress for virtual flow meters in the near future. The application of multi-phase flows meters are expected to further expand in the future as fields are maturing, thus, efficient utilization of existing fields are in focus, to decide if a field is still financially profitable.


Author(s):  
Jacek Nowakowski ◽  
Robert Banasiak ◽  
Radosław Wajman ◽  
Dominik Sankowski

The multi-phase flow measurements are very important tasks in many areas of industrial processes applications. One of them is undersea exploration of oil in the petroleum industry. The submitted paper presents application of DECART tomograph designed and built in Lodz University of Technology - together with combined measurements of signals acquired from gamma ray measurement system. Use of all measuring modalities allowed for performing measurements of a flow composed of sea water, oil and gas. The paper presents theoretical principles applied to design multimodality tomograph and results of experiments performed in the University of Bergen. Measurement confirmed that multi-modality approach allows giving fast and reliable on-line results of measurements of composition of multi-phase flow. Applied algorithms allowed to speed up on-line measurements and presenting results in a form required in industrial applications. The derived conclusions can be used as guidelines for preparation of industrial applicable construction of tomograph.


1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 229-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
F C Kinghorn

Flow measurement has many applications and a wide range of techniques is used. In many industrial sectors there are particular difficulties in measuring flowrate and often special solutions are required. Some of the problems in the oil and gas, biotechnology, automobile and water supply industries are described and the shortcomings or difficulties associated with the methods currently being used are identified. There are also numerous technical difficulties which span several industrial sectors and the topics of multi-phase flow, direct mass flow measurement, pipework configuration effects and computational fluid dynamics are covered, although it is recognised that these are only a few of a very much larger number of difficult areas.


SPE Journal ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (02) ◽  
pp. 733-743
Author(s):  
Haotian Wang ◽  
Deepen P. Gala ◽  
Mukul M. Sharma

Summary Controlled laboratory experiments and some field studies have shown that the onset of sand production in gas wells differs from that in oil wells. Results from a general 3D sand-production numerical model are presented to explain the differences in the onset of sanding and sand-production volume for different fluids and under different flow and in-situ stress conditions. The sand-production model accounts for multiphase-fluid flow and is fully coupled with an elasto-plastic geomechanical model. The sanding criterion considers both mechanical failure and sand erosion by fluid flow. Non-Darcy flow is implemented to account for the high flow rates. The drag forces on the sand grains are computed on the basis of the in-situ Reynolds number. Both the intact rock strength and the residual rock strength depend on water saturation. Water evaporation (drying) resulting from gas flow is modeled using phase equilibrium calculations. The onset of sand production is compared for different fluid types (oil and gas). Model results are shown to be consistent with experimental observations reported in the literature. For example, the onset of sanding is observed at higher compressive stresses for gas wells as compared with oil wells. The primary mechanism for this is for the first time shown to be sand strengthening induced by evaporation of water. This effect is not observed in oil wells. The sand-production rate when non-Darcy effects are considered is lower than for Darcy flow. The reason for this is the lower fluid velocity (for the same drawdown) and, consequently, smaller drag forces on the failed sand grains. The effect of water breakthrough and water cut on sand production is studied from both mechanical and erosion perspectives. The model is shown to be capable of accurately predicting the onset of sanding and sand production induced by multiphase- and compressible-fluid flows, helping us to predict sanding issues in both oil and gas wells.


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