TY - THES

T1 - Analysis of Electric Submersible Pump, Gas Lift System, and the Hybrid System Performance in high Water Cut Wells

AU - Langeder, Andreas Karl

N1 - no embargo

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - To raise production in late field life this thesis conducts a study of artificial lift methods in high water cut environments and will try to optimize electrical submersible pump (ESP), gas lift and ESP – gas lift hybrid installations for such task. Multiple production fluids with increasing water cuts were created in Multiflash to test the selected artificial lift systems under varying operating conditions. These were designed in PipeSim and tested in OLGA. The initial system designs were left unchanged as the water cuts increased to determine its effect on productivity, efficiency, and energy consumption. Over the four cases of increasing water cut the ESPs performance drops as operating conditions are deteriorating. The increase in hydrostatic load in high water cut cases deteriorates the pumps liquid production rates and increases its power consumption. The production rate declines the most in the gas lift completion, as it is least capable of handling the changing operational envelope. The reduction of oil in the production fluid with every case adds the lift systems problems as less of it is able to degas and aid in production. The declining gas production rate additionally impedes this lift system as additional gas needs to be supplied to sustain production. The hybrid system is least affected by the increasing water cuts. Combining the gas lift and ESP systems provides the greatest liquid flowrates, but the decline of oil production with increasing water cuts raises the question if the installation and operation of such an expensive system in contrast to the other production systems is economically feasible.

AB - To raise production in late field life this thesis conducts a study of artificial lift methods in high water cut environments and will try to optimize electrical submersible pump (ESP), gas lift and ESP – gas lift hybrid installations for such task. Multiple production fluids with increasing water cuts were created in Multiflash to test the selected artificial lift systems under varying operating conditions. These were designed in PipeSim and tested in OLGA. The initial system designs were left unchanged as the water cuts increased to determine its effect on productivity, efficiency, and energy consumption. Over the four cases of increasing water cut the ESPs performance drops as operating conditions are deteriorating. The increase in hydrostatic load in high water cut cases deteriorates the pumps liquid production rates and increases its power consumption. The production rate declines the most in the gas lift completion, as it is least capable of handling the changing operational envelope. The reduction of oil in the production fluid with every case adds the lift systems problems as less of it is able to degas and aid in production. The declining gas production rate additionally impedes this lift system as additional gas needs to be supplied to sustain production. The hybrid system is least affected by the increasing water cuts. Combining the gas lift and ESP systems provides the greatest liquid flowrates, but the decline of oil production with increasing water cuts raises the question if the installation and operation of such an expensive system in contrast to the other production systems is economically feasible.

KW - ESP

KW - Gas Lift

KW - Hybrid

KW - OLGA

KW - PipeSim

KW - Simulation

KW - ESP

KW - Gas Lift

KW - Hybrid

KW - OLGA

KW - PipeSim

KW - Simulation

KW - Tauchkreiselpumpe

M3 - Master's Thesis

ER -