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Copyright 1999, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc. companies still use the traditional gradient method in order to
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 1999 SPE Annual Technical Conference and allocate the lift gas between wells optimally so that the total
Exhibition held in Houston, Texas, 36 October 1999.
average oil production is optimized when the available amount
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE Program Committee following review of
information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper, as
of lift gas is limited. However, this approach has several
presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to disadvantages. First it does not account for the fact that the
correction by the author(s). The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any
position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Papers presented at wellhead pressures and flow rates are mutually dependent due
SPE meetings are subject to publication review by Editorial Committees of the Society of
Petroleum Engineers. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper
to the pressure drop in the gathering system. Secondly, and
for commercial purposes without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is sometimes more important, it does not account for heading
prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is r estricted to an abstract of not more than 300
words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous problems. Last but not least, the problem of proper and safe
acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper was presented. Write Librarian, SPE, P.O. unloading is also not addressed. Thus, an automation system
Box 833836, Richardson, TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435.
that handles oil production should take all these factors into
account.
Abstract Currently, there is an increasing interest within the oil
Oil production wells on gas lift are sometimes unstable at low industry for addressing oil production optimization using
gas lift rates, even though steady-state flow analysis gives control system technologies and optimization techniques.
most efficient production at these gas lift rates. Unstable There are several reasons for this:
production, often called heading, may lead to periods of 1. Reduced oil prize gives an increased focus on costs and
reduced or even no liquid production followed by large peaks production efficiency.
of liquid and gas. This results in average oil production less 2. Many reservoirs are today depleting. This means that the
than expected, and oil and gas production less than the total oil production is dependent of the well performance
systems design capacity to allow for the production peaks rather than capacity limitations of the processing plant
without causing shutdowns. 3. Taxes and pressure on energy utilization has increased in
To solve the problem the amount of lift gas is normally a number of areas recently. For example, the Norwegian
increased beyond the most optimum rate. When the lift gas CO2 -tax for the offshore industry is 50USD/metric ton
supply is limited, other gas lifted wells must then be shut in. CO2 produced. This gives an enormous incentive to
This paper describes one field proven sequence bas ed reduce energy consumption on the installations.
automation for oil production, plus a new model-based Looking at other industries, such as Ethylene cracking and
automatic controller. Both technologies solve the problem of polymerization, the possibility for increasing throughput
unstable production from gas lifted wells through through a systematic approach in order to avoid downtime, de-
manipulation of the production and/or the gas-injection bottleneck the process and continuously monitor the
chokes. The sequence-based automation and the model-based performance is in these industries crucial to their profitability.
controller stabilize the production at operating points that It is obvious that the oil industry has much to learn regarding
would be unstable under standard operation. Field these matters.
measurements such as wellhead pressure, annulus pressure etc. Possible benefits by increasing the level of automation in
are inputs to the controllers (or are used by the controller). the oil industry are:
Examples are given of the model-based controller working 1. Increased safety due to smooth behavior during
together with realistic transient flow models of gas lift wells. continuos production and start up, and shut in of wells
Testing of the model-based controller on real unstable wells is 2. Increased production due to less downtime, faster
planned. startup and continuously optimized production
3. More efficient use of manpower through
Introduction simplification of the well handling, and stable
In production systems with gas lifted and naturally flowing behavior of the wells
wells, the problem of lift-gas allocation is well known. Many
2 B. Jansen, M. Dalsmo, L. Nkleberg; K. Havre, V. Kristiansen, P. Lemetayer SPE 56832
Reducing the size of the down-hole gas lift valve orifice reduces the flow from the wells in a pre-specified order or
may also reduce or solve the heading problem, but the shutting in a number of wells.
resulting higher annulus pressure and gas injection pressure
lead to higher costs. Fig. 7 gives a real example from Grondin field that shows
how FCW can influence the behavior of a well; more
Proven technology production with less lift gas.
In 1990 Elf Exploration Production developed a system for
automatic handling of single wells and complete field sections. General Architecture
Some of the results were reported in Ref. 3 and in Ref. 4. The The system includes the following major elements (see
name for these technologies are Full control of wells or Fig. 8): well equipment (with gauges and actuators), gas lift
FCW. FCW consists of two main parts: and oil networks (with gauges), a local control system, and
one or more operator stations.
1. An individual well management level, referred to here as The well equipment required for each well includes an
Monowell actuated production choke and a gas lift injection control valve
2. A collective well management level referred to here as plus transmitters to measure wellhead and casing pressure,
Multiwell, which controls a series of wells in relation to injection gas flow rate and optionally liquid flow rate,
the oil and gas facilities. production choke position and oil production choke pressure
drop.
The system is the first and still the unique field-applied The casing and tubing valves used for shut down are
dynamic control that uses both the oil production choke and managed only by the PSD and ESD systems. Only information
the lift gas control valve of each well under continuous gas - about shut down is given by the PSD and ESD systems to the
lift, see Fig. 6. The control schemes account continuously for automation system. Fig. 9 shows a topology drawing of the
simple surface measurements on the wells and on the facilities. instrumentation.
The local control system commands the wells, receives
Control concepts measurements from the various sensors installed in the wells
Well production is optimized on the basis of technical and in the gas and oil networks, controls gas injection flow
constraints and economical and strategic objectives, while rate and liquid production. Program logic is implemented here.
taking into account safety and production rules, reservoir The operator station is used in order to monitor the various
extraction policy, (max. flow rate per well, production quotas measurements, perform commands like well start, well stop
etc.), well bore-formation interface (sand control, max. dP and selection of operating mode, consult the well history,
etc.) and capacity of the installations (upstream & diagnose system operation and update parameters.
downstream). The system is based on universal sequences and
fuzzy logic without any computation. It is a sequence-based Experience
control dynamically adjusting lift gas and oil choke. Today these technologies have been used for nearly ten
The technology features individual well management years on more than 200 wells. The experience shows that the
including effective but gentle and controlled unloading of the described concepts for automation increase the average oil
well that overcomes the energy threshold of the well. The production from 5 to 20%, and a decrease in gas lift usage
system is able to automatically reduce the injection gas flow from 5 to 20%.
rate until a desired level or the instability region, and In this article we would like to elaborate how these
thereafter continuously adjust the gas flow to assure stability benefits occurs.
of the flow and pressure in the well. The control stabilizes
operating points that are unstable under standard operation Increased Process Uptime
through an enhanced path during unloading and transition. The Automatic control of the wells means both smooth and
instability is field proven to be path dependent. efficient start-up. Thus, the start-up surge is dampened, and
In case of substantial variations in flow rate, the the well is stable after the start-up phase. Especially there is no
adjustments on the well are modified immediately to bring the more heading production mode. The major need of operation
well back to its normal regime. for the oil production chokes and the lift gas injection control
The Multiwell control module ensures collective valves is during the restart-up phase. In case of instability, the
management of wells by sequential start and restart of a group control program achieves quickly corrective actions including
of wells, for example all wells at an offshore platform. The a choke back which dampers the surges.
wells are started up in pre-determined sequence. Optimization The total production throughput is often limited by the
of the gas lift network is based on selective load shedding of capacity in the separators. This means that the separator train
the wells. Based upon measurements e.g. separator level, is heavily loaded. A fluctuation in flow or composition from
export pressure or lift gas supply pressure, the system the wells leads to disturbances in the separation process. This
automatically observes bottlenecks that might lead to process gives sometimes high-high alarms of level or pressure in the
shutdown. In such cases the system automatically either
4 B. Jansen, M. Dalsmo, L. Nkleberg; K. Havre, V. Kristiansen, P. Lemetayer SPE 56832
separator and thereby process shut down. The control system partly be viewed as further development of the method
counteracts efficiently on up-coming problems downstream. presented in the previous section. It is another approach for the
automatic stabilization of gas lifted oil wells and thus
Increased Life of the Wells and Fewer Well works maximizing the lift gas efficiency, which captures the well and
Steady production also means steady bottom-hole pressure. process knowledge in a dynamic model.
This is crucial for prevention of formation damage and The main ingredient in the model-based gas lifted well
troubles on the draw down zone; i.e. the risk for collapse is controller concept is a dynamic (transient) model of a gas
reduced (see Ref. 3). lifted well from which a model-based stabilizing gas lift
An unstable production mode causes numerous and quick controller can be designed. By using such a model-based
pressure changes which increase the formation damage. concept it is possible to stabilize the pressures, temperatures
Equally important, the kick-off of a gas lifted well leads to and flow rates of a gas lifted well in an operating point that is
rapid and big changes of pressure between annulus and tubing unstable in open-loop (i.e., when no active control is used).
due to the inflow of gas in annulus, followed by opening of The model-based stabilizing gas lifted well controller makes
unloading valves and gas lift valve. If not properly controlled, sure that the control error, the difference between the
these variations might lead to damages or even collapse of the (externally given) optimal reference operating point and the
tubing. Formation damage usually decreases the reservoir real operating point, at any time is kept at a minimum. An
inflow performance (PI). appealing feature of the model-based stabilizing gas lifted well
In such a situation workover operations in order to repair controller concept is that it is able to stabilize gas lifted wells
the damages will lead to downtime and costly rig operations. with different measurement devices (sensors) available for
Using automation, the risk for damages will be reduced due to control purposes.
better control and less pressure fluctuations. Fig. 10 shows a schematic of the new model-based
stabilizing gas lift controller structure. The model-based gas
Increased Production Rates from the Wells lift controller uses an externally given optimal reference point
The increase of average production rates is due to both and one or more process measurements (or a model-based
stable flow and shorter periods with reduced flow or shut estimate of these) to calculate the opening of the production
down. The stable flow increases the lift gas efficiency choke and/or the gas injection choke. The preferred mode for
especially under low flow rate of lift gas and increases the the externally given optimal reference point is the
usable capacity of the facilities. specification of the optimal LGR (gas rate through the down-
hole gas injection valve).
Improved Drainage of the Reservoir Consider again Fig. 5 that shows a lift performance
For some wells, water coning decides the water cut, such relationship curve for a North Sea gas lifted well generated
that higher coning gives higher water cut. The coning is often using the dynamic multi-phase flow simulator OLGA. The
a function of the dynamics when the well is kicked off. shape of the lift performance curve is typical for gas lifted
Smooth behavior of the well (also during kick off) gives wells. The solid curve corresponds to injecting lift gas directly
reduced coning and thus lower water cut. through the lowest gas injection valve at constant rate.
Obviously, this is not possible, and the dotted curve shows the
Reduced use of lift gas for gas lifted wells resulting average production when the lift gas is injected at
Economics and lift gas availability often require to operate constant rate through the gas injection choke. In both cases
wells under a reduced lift gas injection, for example when the resulting oil production rate are shown as a function of the
watercut increases or on strong capacity wells. Conversely, amount of injected lift gas. Due to unstable production at low
high lift gas injection into tubing is usually required to gas injection rates when injection the lift gas through the gas
properly achieve the unloading during the restart phase. A injection choke, it is seen from Fig. 5 that the typical loss in
temporary high lift gas flow rate (see Fig. 7) in conjunction average production is high for unstable production conditions
with the oil choke operation achieves a successful restart. (dotted curve) as compared to stable operating conditions
Furthermore, it is often essential to reduce lift gas usage (solid curve). The results in Fig. 5 agree very well with what
during a well restart phase. This is achieved mainly due to was reported in Ref. 1 where a transient simulator was used to
shortened start-up time, but also due to sequenced start-up and remedy gas lift problems. However, a transient simulator
the annulus packing. During continuous operation, a stable alone may only help you to figure out how to improve your
flow requires lower lift gas support. Also, the sustained stable gas lift design, whereas capturing the dynamic model in an
conditions in the annulus gives less fluctuations in the lift gas active control algorithm solves the stability problems without
rate. changing the design. Indeed, experiments have shown that
with the new model-based stabilizing active controller the well
A New Model-Based Automatic Control Approach in Fig. 5 may be operated on or in infinitesimal distance from
In this section we will present a new model-based automatic the stable solid curve.
control approach for gas lifted wells. This method heavily
relies on dynamic (transient) gas lifted well models, and can
SPE 56832 AUTOMATIC CONTROL OF UNSTABLE GAS LIFTED WELLS 5
In Fig. 5, it is seen that there is no production when the lift downstream the production choke and the mass flow rate
gas injection is zero. Note that this figure is not universally of gas and liquid through the choke
valid. In fact:
1) For high PI wells, the solid curve (stable flow) gives The advantages with this simple dynamic model structure
production with no injection but the dotted line (unstable) are many. Compactness is one appealing feature (only a set of
gives no production for no injection. ordinary differential equations and algebraic equations).
2) For low PI wells, the dotted curve has also no production Secondly, it is able to capture the main dynamic behavior of
for no injection but the solid curve crosses the dotted gas lifted well both at low, medium (unstable operating
curve. Below a minimum lift gas, no stable flow is conditions) and high (stable operating conditions) gas
possible whatever the control is. Below the cross point, it injection rates. Even so important, the model may easily be
is more economical to produce unstable (intermittent gas - linearized, meaning that it is suitable for linear controller and
lift). estimator design. In addition, the parameters in the model can
be tuned so that the model fits measured real time -series of
A Simple Dynamic Model Structure pressures, temperatures, and flow rates from a gas lifted well.
The idea behind the new model-based concept is to analyze Fig. 11 shows an open-loop simulation where the simple
and design stabilizing controllers, and, if applicable, model structure has been used to model the unstable gas lifted
estimators based on a dynamic model of the system. For this well in Fig. 5. The model has been implemented and simulated
purpose we have developed a structure for a simplified using MATLAB. MATLAB (see e.g. Ref. 5) is an integrated
dynamic non-linear model based on physical principles of gas technical computing environment that combines numeric
lifted wells suitable for controller and estimator design. The computation, advanced graphics and visualization, and a high-
main purpose with this dynamic model is to describe the level programming language, and provides a perfect
interactions between the annular space and tubing which leads environment for dynamic analysis and model-based controller
to the unstable behavior (heading limit cycles) at low and development and design. As seen from the simulation results,
intermediate gas injection rates. In addition it is necessary that the model is able to capture the oscillating limit cycle
the model becomes stable at high gas injection rates. The idea conditions, also known as casing heading, in the experimental
is to use a simple model basically relying on three differential gas lifted well.
equations conserving mass in the tubing and casing, and a
couple of algebraic equations (of state) for approximating Linear Models For Controller Design
energy and impulse balances. At the cost of a more A nonlinear dynamic gas lifted well model in accordance with
complicated, yet accurate, model, differential equations the proposed structure may be used directly as part of the
describing energy balances and impulse balances may also be model-based stabilizing gas lift controller shown in Fig. 10.
included. To sum up, the nonlinear dynamic gas lifted well However, it is sometimes difficult to design a model-based
model consists of: controller based on a nonlinear model. The preferred way for
utilizing the derived nonlinear model will therefore be
Model of the pipes (casing and tubing): linearization. To locally capture the dynamic behavior of an
1. Three ordinary differential equations conserving unstable operating point of a gas lifted oil well, the nonlinear
masses in casing and tubing. model in accordance with the structure described above may
2. Algebraic equations (of state) relating pressure, be linearized in the current operating point of interest.
temperature, and liquid and gas holdup to each other Representing the local dynamics of a gas lifted well using a
in casing and tubing. linear state-space model or, equivalently, a transfer function
3. Algebraic equations for pressure head. model then locally captures the dynamic behavior in the
neighborhood of an unstable operating point. Several authors
Model of gas injection choke: An algebraic equation have previously used transfer function models for locally
describing the relation between the pressure upstream and representing the dynamics of gas lift wells in order to derive
downstream the gas injection choke and the mass flow stability criteria (see Refs. 4, 7 and 8).
rate through the choke. We have developed two efficient ways of generating these
kind of linear gas lifted well models. One way is, as already
Model of the gas injection valve: An algebraic equation alluded to, by (numerical or analytical) linearization of a
describing the relation between the pressure upstream and nonlinear dynamic gas lifted well model in accordance with
downstream the gas injection valve and the mass flow rate our invented structure described above. Another way of doing
through the valve. The equation will vary depending on it is by closed-loop identification experiments on a gas lifted
the type of gas injection valve used. oil well modeled in OLGA where the closed-loop system is
stable in the operating point in question.
Model of the production choke: An algebraic equation Used in combination with advanced techniques from
describing the relation between the pressure upstream and control theory (see e.g. Ref. 9) the linear local gas lifted well
models (as described above) can be used to design model-
6 B. Jansen, M. Dalsmo, L. Nkleberg; K. Havre, V. Kristiansen, P. Lemetayer SPE 56832
24 140
Pressure (bar)
Production 20 130
16 120
12 110
Region of optimum lift gas utilisation
8 100
4 90
0 80
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0
TIME (h)
Gas Injection
Fig. 1Typical lift performance relationship curve for a gas lifted Fig. 3Unstable production for a gas lifted well constant gas lift
well. rate = 0.6 kg/s.
Pressure (bar)
9.7 93.4
9.6 93.2
9.5 93
9.3 92.6
Gas Injection Choke 9.2 92.4
TIME (h)
Annulus Fig. 4Unstable production for a gas lifted well constant gas lift
rate = 1.2 kg/s.
Production tubing
12
Region of optimum operation
Gas Lift Valve
10
Bottomhole
Oil production rate (kg/s)
Pressure
8
6
Oil production rate - Stable flow
Reservoir
4 Oil Production rate - Unstable flow
0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
Gas lift rate (kg/s)
Operator stations
OIL
OIL CHOKE
CHOKE
OIL
SYSTEM
SYSTEM
M
MW computer network
MONOWELL
MONOWELL U
U E
E
SEQUENCES L L
L
SEQUENCES
T L
L local
I S controller
LIFT
LIFT GAS
GAS
SYSTEM
SYSTEM
LIFT
LIFT GAS
GAS
CONTROL
CONTROL VALVE
100
OIL INCREASE
INCREASE
GAS DECREASE
STABILITY
%
Standard
Standard well Gas-lift optimisation & automation
automation
operation
0
Fig. 8 System architecture
4 5 6 7 88 9 10
10 11 12 13 14
14 15 16
16
Ti
Time (hours)
Fig. 7 Example of how the automation concepts influence well
behavior. THP THT
THP
GAS NETWORK
NETWORK
FCV
FCV SDV
GAS-LIFT INJECTION VALVE
External
Reference
Production
Model-based Choke Gas Lifted Process
Controller Oil Well Measurements
Gas Injection
Choke
Model-
based
Estimator
Fig. 10A schematic of the new model- based stabilizing gas lift
controller structure.
SPE 56832 AUTOMATIC CONTROL OF UNSTABLE GAS LIFTED WELLS 9
.
Measurement of
Opening of Casing Pressure or
Reference Pressure
Model-Based Production Choke Pressure in Gas Supply Line
Gas Lifted
40
Oil production rate Gas Lift
Controller
Well
30
Fig. 15Control structure for stabilization of a gas lifted well
using measurements of casing pressure and a model-based
controller for manipulation of the production choke. The numbers
kg/s
Casing Pressure
Total oil production rate
10 140 60
Controller Start
120 40
kg/s
20
bar
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 100
time[hour ] 80 0
Fig. 11An open loop (no active control) transient simulation for
an experimental gas lifted well based on a simple nonlinear gas 60 -20
lifted well model. 0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15
time [hours] time [hours]
Estimator
40
30
Controller Startup
bar
20
kg/s
20
Controller Startup
10
15 -10
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
time [hours] time [hours]