Mechanistic Model for the Design and Operation of an Intermittent Gas Lift System for Liquid Loaded Horizontal Gas Wells

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Croce ◽  
Luis Zerpa

Abstract Removing stagnant liquid in a loaded horizontal gas well remains an unsolved challenge. Current practices for horizontal well deliquification are limited in terms of reliability and continuity, resulting on increased OPEX and CAPEX, behind down time and additional equipment installation. Experimental evaluation of a proposed artificial lift method for horizontal well deliquification, showed average removal efficiencies of 75% of the stagnant liquid volume. The experimental facility consisted of an experimental flow loop, that replicates conditions of liquid-loaded horizontal wells, with a horizontal section of 40 feet and a vertical section of 40 feet. The method is based on the chamber lift principles, using intermittent injection of gas at high pressure and low volumetric flow rates to the horizontal section of the well. Removal efficiency increased by 12% by using saccharidic additives and sodium chloride, to increase the surface tension between the injected gas (compressed air) and the liquid (water). This work presents a mechanistic model of the proposed artificial lift method, based on the momentum balance of the gas and the liquid slug flowing along the horizontal and vertical sections of the system, including numerical regressions for the prediction of the surface tension and viscosity of the liquid mixture as a function of temperature and the concentration of the tested additives. The model is used to determine the required available injection pressure at surface, and the location of the valve mandrel, as same as to estimate the removed liquid volume, discharge volumetric rate, and discharge pressure of the liquid slug at the surface facilities. The model is validated against experimental data obtained from the experimental flow loop.

2015 ◽  
Vol 733 ◽  
pp. 17-22
Author(s):  
Yang Liu ◽  
Zhuo Pu He ◽  
Qi Ma ◽  
Yu Hang Yu

In order to improve the drilling speed, lower the costs of development and solve the challenge of economies of scale development in sulige gas field, the key techniques research on long horizontal section of horizontal well drilling speed are carried out. Through analyzing the well drilling and geological data in study area, and supplemented by the feedback of measured bottom hole parameters provided by underground engineering parameters measuring instrument, the key factors restricting the drilling speed are found out and finally developed a series of optimum fast drilling technologies of horizontal wells, including exploitation geology engineering technique, strengthen the control of wellbore trajectory, optimize the design of the drill bit and BHA and intensify the drilling parameters. These technologies have a high reference value to improve the ROP of horizontal well in sulige gas field.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Shaaban ◽  
Eissa Al-Safran

Abstract The production and transportation of high viscosity liquid/gas two-phase along petroleum production system is a challenging operation due to the lack of understanding the flow behavior and characteristics. In particular, accurate prediction of two-phase slug length in pipes is crucial to efficiently operate and safely design oil well and separation facilities. The objective of this study is to develop a mechanistic model to predict high viscosity liquid slug length in pipelines and to optimize the proper set of closure relationships required to ensure high accuracy prediction. A large high viscosity liquid slug length database is collected and presented in this study, against which the proposed model is validated and compared with other models. A mechanistic slug length model is derived based on the first principles of mass and momentum balances over a two-phase slug unit, which requires a set of closure relationships of other slug characteristics. To select the proper set of closure relationships, a numerical optimization is carried out using a large slug length dataset to minimize the prediction error. Thousands of combinations of various slug flow closure relationships were evaluated to identify the most appropriate relationships for the proposed slug length model under high viscosity slug length condition. Results show that the proposed slug length mechanistic model is applicable for a wide range of liquid viscosities and is sensitive to the selected closure relationships. Results revealed that the optimum closure relationships combination is Archibong-Eso et al. (2018) for slug frequency, Malnes (1983) for slug liquid holdup, Jeyachandra et al. (2012) for drift velocity, and Nicklin et al. (1962) for the distribution coefficient. Using the above set of closure relationships, model validation yields 37.8% absolute average percent error, outperforming all existing slug length models.


Author(s):  
R. Arismendi ◽  
L. Gomez ◽  
S. Wang ◽  
R. Mohan ◽  
O. Shoham ◽  
...  

The hydrodynamic behavior of gas-liquid-solids in a modified GLCC© has been studied for the first time experimentally and theoretically. A GLCC© experimental facility has been designed, constructed and utilized to acquire data on gas-solid-liquid flow in both upstream 2-inch injection line horizontal section and in the 3-inch GLCC©. Experimental data have been acquired for the minimum gas velocity required to transport the solids up to the liquid injection point, and for the minimum liquid injection rate necessary to wet the solids and capture them in the liquid phase. The data have been acquired for 4 solid particle sizes of 5 μm, 25 μm, 50 μm and 150 μm. A mechanistic model has been developed or modified for solids transport/ separation, for the prediction of the minimum transport gas velocity, and the required minimum liquid injection rate. A comparison between the model prediction and the acquired experimental data shows good agreement. The average relative error for minimum transport gas and liquid velocities are, 4.3% and 9.55%, respectively.


Author(s):  
A. Mehdizadeh ◽  
S. A. Sherif ◽  
W. E. Lear

In this paper the Navier-stokes equations for a single liquid slug have been solved in order to predict the circulation patterns within the slug. Surface tension effects on the air-water interface have been investigated by solving the Young–Laplace equation. The calculated interface shape has been utilized to define the liquid slug geometry at the front and tail interfaces of the slug. Then the effects of the surface tension on the hydrodynamics of the two-phase slug flow have been compared to those where no surface tension forces exist. The importance of the complex flow field features in the vicinity of the two interfaces has been investigated by defining a non-dimensional form of the wall shear stress. The latter quantity has been formulated based on non-dimensional parameters in order to define a general Moody friction factor for typical two-phase slug flows in microchannels. Moreover, the hydrodynamics of slug flow formation has been examined using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The volume-of-fluid (VOF) method has been applied to monitor the growth of the instability at the air-water interface. The lengths of the slugs have been correlated to the pressure fluctuations in the mixing region of the air and water streams at an axisymmetric T-junction. The main frequencies of the pressure fluctuations have been investigated using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) method.


2008 ◽  
Vol 130 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Reinoso ◽  
Luis E. Gomez ◽  
Shoubo Wang ◽  
Ram S. Mohan ◽  
Ovadia Shoham ◽  
...  

This study investigates theoretically and experimentally the slug damper as a novel flow conditioning device, which can be used upstream of compact separation systems. In the experimental part, a 3 in. ID slug damper facility has been installed in an existing 2 in. diameter two-phase flow loop. This flow loop includes an upstream slug generator, a gas-liquid cylindrical cyclone (GLCC©, ©The University of Tulsa, 1994) attached to the slug damper downstream and a set of conductance probes for measuring the propagation of the dissipated slug along the damper. Over 200 experimental runs were conducted with artificially generated inlet slugs of 50 ft length (Ls/d=300) that were dumped into the loop upstream of the slug damper, varying the superficial liquid velocity between 0.5 ft/s and 2.5 ft/s and superficial gas velocity between 10 ft/s and 40 ft/s (in the 2 in. inlet pipe) and utilizing segmented orifice opening heights of 1 in., 1.5 in., 2 in., and 3 in. For each experimental run, the measured data included propagation of the liquid slug front in the damper, differential pressure across the segmented orifice, GLCC liquid level, GLCC outlet liquid flow, and static pressure in the GLCC. The data show that the slug damper/GLCC system is capable of dissipating long slugs, narrowing the range of liquid flow rate from the downstream GLCC. Also, the damper capacity to process large slugs is a strong function of the superficial gas velocity (and mixture velocity). The theoretical part includes the development of a mechanistic model for the prediction of the hydrodynamic flow behavior in the slug damper. The model enables the predictions of the outlet liquid flow rate and the available damping time, and in turn the prediction of the slug damper capacity. Comparison between the model predictions and the acquired data reveals an accuracy of ±30% with respect to the available damping time and outlet liquid flow rate. The developed model can be used for design of slug damper units.


Author(s):  
M. R. Myers ◽  
H. M. Cave ◽  
S. P. Krumdieck

Two-phase intermittent gas and liquid slug flow in small diameter glass and plastic tubes was studied. Two distinct flow regimes and the transition phenomena were identified. A modified Hagen-Poiseuille relation was derived to describe the extremely high pressure drop due to the surface tension effects of pinned slug flow.


2013 ◽  
Vol 1569 ◽  
pp. 115-120
Author(s):  
Siyuan Xing ◽  
Jia Jiang ◽  
Tingrui Pan

ABSTRACTCapillary-driven microfluidics, utilizes the capillary force generated by fibrous hydrophilic materials (e.g., paper and cotton) to drive biological reagents, has been extended to various biological and chemical analyses recently. However, the restricted capillary-driving mechanism persists to be a major challenge for continuous and facilitated biofluidic transport. In this abstract, we have first introduced a new interfacial microfluidic transport principle to automatically and continuously drive three-dimensional liquid flows on a micropatterned superhydrophobic textile (MST). Specifically, the MST platform utilizes the surface tension-induced Laplace pressure to facilitate the liquid motion along the fibers, in addition to the capillary force existing in the fibrous structure. The surface tension-induced pressure can be highly controllable by the sizes of the stitching patterns of hydrophilic yarns and the confined liquid volume. Moreover, the fluidic resistances of various configurations of connecting fibers are quantitatively investigated. Furthermore, a demonstration of the liquid collection ability of MST has been demonstrated on an artificial skin model. The MST can be potentially applied to large volume and continuous biofluidic collection and removal.


2012 ◽  
Vol 594-597 ◽  
pp. 226-229
Author(s):  
Kai Chun Yu ◽  
Yan Zhu ◽  
Xiao Xing Li ◽  
Shi Feng Zhang

The branch well G8-33-H1Z is the first fishbone horizontal well of Daqing. The fishbone horizontal well is one type of the branch horizontal wells, which drilling again two or more branch holes in the horizontal section of the horizontal well. This well lies in G21 block where is near to the west of Daqing oilfield Changyuan area and the northeast of G20 of the north Gaotaizi oilfield. The purpose of the drilling is using branch horizontal well to control more areal reserves and increasing drainable area to improve well production. This technique can improve the economic benefit of oilfield development, which saves drilling investment, makes full use of the upper borehole to improve the comprehensive exploitation degree of the reservoir and achieves highly efficient development using less well. This well has two horizontal branches, and puts ‘trunk-branch-trunk-branch’ into effect while drilling. The first branch designed horizontal length 150m. The second branch designed horizontal length 150m. This paper introduced the tracing with drilling process of Daqing first fishbone horizontal well, and also described the complex situations and the treatment methods while drilling wellbore trajectory and constructing well and the development effect. Finally some suggestions were put forward about tracing with drilling in fishbone horizontal well.


2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Majid Al-Otaibi ◽  
Cesar H. Pardo ◽  
Ronny Gunarto ◽  
Mohammed Kanfar

2014 ◽  
Vol 955-959 ◽  
pp. 3484-3488
Author(s):  
Guang Zhong Lv ◽  
Jiang Qiao Zhang

An electrolytic simulation experiment was designed according to the water and electricity resembling principle. The pressure contour distribution and the effects of the productivity of the fractured horizontal well were experimentally studied under the flooding. The equal pressure lines around horizontal wells were elliptic, and the equal pressure lines were Parallelled distribution in the fracture of horizontal well, Flow states was unidirectional flow, indicating staged fracturing of horizontal well by improving Percolation way greatly reduce seepage resistance. Under the experimental conditions, staged fracturing horizontal waterflooding development best combination of parameters: row and staggered well pattern, penetration ratio of horizontal section was 0.8, the number of fractures should be 6 (fracture space was 91m), penetration ratio of fracture was 0.25, the angle between the fracture and horizontal well is 90 degree. The importance ranking of productivity was horizontal length, the number of fractures (fracture space ),fracture length, he angle between the fracture and horizontal well and well-pattern type.


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