A Novel Method for Early Warning and Quantitative Evaluation of Liquid Loading in Gas Wellbore Based on Dynamic Production Data: A Case Study of Linxing Tight Gas Field

Abstract

Gas wells in Linxing Tight Gas Field are characterized by significant water production, and individual well water production measurement is missing, which pose challenges to predict liquid loading and conduct quantitative evaluations. Moreover, relying solely on flow temperature and pressure testing can be costly and time-consuming. To address these critical issues, we established the prewarning model and quantitative evaluation method for liquid loading. By utilizing those models, real-time judgment and evaluation of liquid loading can be achieved without individual well water production measurements. Our researches reveal that the pressure differential per unit gas production exhibits four patterns for different production stages. In contrast to maintaining a consistent pattern in the absence of liquid loading, the presence of fluid accumulation in production wells can be diagnosed through the increase in the specific production pressure difference within the liquid-loaded production section. Furthermore, the height of liquid loading in the wellbore can be calculated by using the quantitative evaluation model, which can match well with the field tests. The average error can be only 5.9%, and it will offer a novel solution for early warning and quantitative evaluation of wellbore liquid loading in water-producing tight gas fields. In addition, the limitation for strong stress sensitivity effect and high initial water yield-well needs to be broken through in future work.