Worldwide Field Experience of Mobile Well Testing Services With Multiphase Flowmeters

Abstract

The paper presents the field performance of mobile multiphase flowmeters in more than 500 well tests during the last three years. The field tests were conducted on land or offshore in a wide range of field operating conditions, such as high flowing pressure, heavy oil, viscous fluids, gas and wet gas, gas volume fraction ranging from 10% to 99.6%, and water to liquid ratio frcm 0 to 100%. An in-depth analysis of the lessons learned shows the benefits and limitations of the technology in comparison to the traditional test separators and illustrates the expected range of accuracies that can be readily achieved in the field environment. Statistics from over 600 comparison tests provide a complete understanding of the accuracies of oil, gas, and water flow rates achieved with the multiphase flowmeter. The dual-energy spectral gamma ray venturi multiphase flowmeter requires the measurements of few basic well site fluid properties. A procedure, detailed in the paper, explains the utilization of a field kit specifically designed for this application when no prior information of fluids is available, which is frequently the case in well testing in new areas. The paper presents how the specifically engineered test-design software provides a rapid-decision tool to the selection of the best well testing solution (multiphase flowmeter or test separator). Finally, some operational recommendations for performance of well tests using multiphase flowmeters shares the experience acquired in these 500 operations performed worldwide.

The Identification of Condensate Banking With Multiphase Flowmeters—A Case Study

“…As documented at length by Atkinson et al [5,6] and Theuveny et al [2], the operating triangle of the multiphase flowmeter controls the computation of the fractions of oil, gas and water in the pipe. In gas environment -high GVF, the operating point is very close to the apex of the triangle -the gas point.…”

“…Introduced in 1999, the Vx multiphase flowmeter has been deployed in almost all types of operational arena both on mobile applications in Exploration, appraisal and clean-ups and permanent or mobile set-ups for production well testing [2], [5].…”

Development Well Testing Enhancement Using a Multiphase Flowmeter

“…There have been several different types of MFM available from several vendors; however, the new generation of multiphase flow meters using dual-energy nuclear and Venturi measurements have demonstrated a much improved responsiveness, accuracy, reliability and mobility than previous meter designs. [16][17][18][19][23][24] This type of MFM has been shown to add significant value by improving both the data quality and the efficiency of well testing operations. 1 Well testing using these multiphase meters has since become our standard testing procedure.…”

“…The measurement principle has been discussed previously in various aspects. 1,2,[16][17][18][19][20][21][22] . The following is a brief review of the measurement principle.…”

Multiphase monitoring by annihilation radiation coincidence mode

“…During the past decades, several type of multiphase metering [1,2,3] has been developed and some of them were installed permanently at the extraction site within a field to fulfill the requirement of the multiphase flow rate measurements. However the implemented methods developed so far, suffer from several draw back (size, high radioactivity of the sources in the case of nuclear techniques, etc.…”