Optimizing Production using Nodal Analysis Applications

Abstract

Optimizing the development of oil and gas fields necessitates the use of accurate predication techniques. The predictions should also involve minimizing the uncertainties associated with day-to-day operational challenges related to wells, pipelines and surface facilities. The choke size settings, for instance, need to be frequently adjusted to optimize production flowrates using the right techniques. This paper provides a method to optimize the production flowrate for existing wells and to minimize the cost through finding the best cost-effective selection. Providing an insight into factors affecting the flow assurance of oil and gas reservoirs is also included. The study has been implemented by the use of nodal analysis conducted by a surface network simulation, to reach the optimum design of oil and gas production systems. The optimization of the wells can be achieved by changing tubing and flowline sizes, minimizing the skin factor, controlling the water cut, and adjusting the gas-lift injection pressure. The Hurricane oil field that covers a wide range of subsurface and surface facility data is simulated in this paper. Seven reservoirs are considered in this study containing eleven different wells. Seven of these wells are producing naturally while the remaining four wells are gas-lifted. For each of the eleven wells, different parametric scenarios are run on the different size of the pipelines and chokes. Flow assurance study has been conducted to know the effect of severe slugging, wax deposition, and hydrate formation. Severe slugging has been predicted using a surface network simulation, while wax deposition and hydrate formation using a pressure-volume- temperature (PVT) simulation. For the artificial lift wells, as this field was mainly operated by gas lift, a new design has been implemented based on gas surface injection rate as a way to eliminate the workover operations.