Gas Lift Design verification and Optimisation
The design of a gas lift system, including the selection of injection depth, plays a crucial role in optimizing well performance. Frequent surveillance, combined with advanced design and monitoring techniques, is essential for overcoming challenges like multipointing and shallow injection, ensuring efficient, sustainable, and profitable gas lift operations.
Troubleshooting Gas Lift Design
The design of a gas lift system, including the selection of injection depth, plays a crucial role in optimizing well performance. Poorly designed systems or incorrect injection depths can lead to inefficiencies such as multipointing or shallow injection, which compromise production rates and increase operational challenges.
ScanWell’s Solutions for Gas Lift Design
- Tracer Dilution Technology: Provides precise measurement of injection and produced gas rates.
- Tracer travel time method: Provides accurate determination of lifting points including leaks and multipointing by tracer travel time online technique.
- Mass balance analysis: Provides gas rate split ratio in dual string design.
- Nodal analysis: Uncovers optimization opportunities.
- Data-Driven Adjustments: Real-time volumetric flow data supports the efficient allocation of lift gas and prevents shallow injection scenarios.
To ensure continuous effective gaslift operation the industry is endorsing a proactive approach. Preventive maintenance became an integrated part of standard practices in the oil fields. Planned preventive maintenance activities allow efficient allocation of the required resources, minimizing the operational bottlenecks, and securing sufficient budgets for all activities. Troubleshooting and repairs on the other hand, can be optimized with the help of gathered data during preventive work.
All the components of gas lifted operation require competence and attention to avoid sudden failures and shutdowns. The focus is on the surveillance of well deliverability to assure maximum production gain and minimum downtime.
The main objective of deliverability surveillance is to assure optimized production and minimized downtime under the operational constraints.
Production optimization is typically done by constructing a gaslift model for each well using one of the commercial software tools available on the market. Inflow Performance Relation (IPR) and Vertical Lift Performance (VLP) curves are constructed using empirical equations and well deliverability is simulated. Further input such as production well test data, gaslift injection rates and downhole gaslift distribution are used to calibrate those models and identify optimization opportunities. An additional approach for evaluating well performance is to measure or model well’s production as a function of gaslift injection rate (GLIR). This relation referred to as gaslift performance curve (GLPC) and allows to evaluate each well in its current state and optimize gaslift allocation across the field.
Minimizing downtime is achieved by optimizing operations requiring production shut-in and reducing activities with increased operational risk that can result in unexpected shutdowns.
The optimization opportunities derived from empirical simulations underly complex operational reality. Limited surveillance data with poor quality, undetected integrity issues such as tubing and casing leaks, result in sub-optimal utilization of identified opportunities.
Gas Lift Rate
- Enhanced Production: Optimize gas lift injection for maximum oil output and efficiency.
- Innovative Technology: Patented N2-based tracer dilution method for accurate flow measurement in all conditions.
- Cost-Effective Solutions: Reduce wastage and operational costs with precise gas lift rate verification.
- Global Expertise: Proven success in deploying advanced gas lift systems worldwide.
