Gas lift allocation optimization using Pipesim network optimizer

Nyelebuchi Amadichuku *, Ugwunna Dickson Amadi, Abu Robin and Ndidi Uzoigwe

Department of Petroleum Engineering, Rivers State University, 500101Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
 
Research Article
World Journal of Advanced Engineering Technology and Sciences, 2024, 11(01), 321–328.
Article DOI: 10.30574/wjaets.2024.11.1.0068
Publication history: 
Received on 13 January 2024; revised on 24 February 2024; accepted on 26 February 2024
 
Abstract: 
This work maximizes oil production from a network of gas lift wells and determines the optimal amount of lift gas with PIPESIM network optimizer. PIPESIM was used to build a couple wellbore-flowline model and its network optimizer was utilized to maximize oil production from a network of gas lifted wells. Two wells were created (Well A and B) and connected to their respective flow lines to a manifold and from the manifold to the central processing facility (CPF) represented by a sink node. A comparison of the oil production rate from Well B with and without constraint on water production rate shows that 7337.432STB/day of oil was produced without any constraints on water production while 7373.479 STB/day of oil was produced with constraint on water production and Well A, 280.6693 STB/day of oil was produced without any constraints on water production while 3.266503 STB/day of oil was produced with constraint on water production. For the injection of 4MMscf/day of gas with a constraint of 1800STB/day on water production, results reveals that a total gas lift rate of 3.723612MMscf/day was required to lift a total oil rate of 7484.669STB/day. Therefore, out of the 4MMscf/day of gas available, 3.723612MMscf/day should be allocated to the network to optimized production.
 
Keywords: 
Gas lift; Production rate; Water Production; Maximize; Constraint; Optimizer
 
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