Identification of Two-Phase Flow Regimes and Computation of Two Phase Pressure Drop in Gas Lifted Wells

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Process Simulation and Control Research Lab., Department of Chemical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Azadi Ave., Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Continuous gas lift process is used to boost oil production in many mature reservoirs, which can no longer produce under natural drive. In this article, application of mechanistic flow maps as well as the correlations estimating pressure drop in a gas lifted well, as the most complex and time consuming part of the gas lift modeling is examined. Using the black-oil model to compute the two-phase pressure drop in a gas lifted well leads to a substantial error due to the changes in composition and bubble point pressure along the well. In order to describe the thermodynamic behavior of the hydrocarbon fluid, a multi-component compositional description has been applied using the reduced parameter method. The results show that the empirical maps and correlations lead to severe discontinuities at transition points between the different flow regimes. This causes an unacceptable error when computing the pressure drop.

Keywords

References

منابع
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Journal of Petroleum Research
Volume 21, Issue 68 - Serial Number 68
January and February 2012
Pages 54-70

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