PRODUCTION SYSTEM MODELLING,CALIBRATION AND OPTIMIZATION IN PRACTICE

ABSTRACT

The present work reports on the application and development of a field planning methodology for an oil production station. NETOPT, which is a network optimizer based on a non-linear sequential quadratic programming, is used in this study. The report discusses this novel approach that considers the simultaneous hydraulic interaction of all individual wells and addresses the methodology used to implement a production system-modeling tool. Factors influencing network behavior are identified and discussed. Constrained and unconstrained optimization of oil/gross liquid production is conducted with decision variables based on gas-lift allocation and chokes openings. It was observed that the unconstrained model using injected gas rates to gas-lifted wells as decision variables improves the net oil production by approximately 6406 bbl/day, which represents an increase of 1.57% over the base case results. Specific problems were encountered during calibration of the production model and these are discussed with the lessons learned.