Gas Lift Manual
Including ample illustrations to help the reader understand the text, this handy reference is essential to the practicing engineer needing to successfully perform this type of artificial lift project.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Gas Lift Manual
2.7: Systems Analysis Basics
2.7 Systems Analysis Basics
Systems analysis of producing oil and gas wells (often called Nodal Analysis) is the latest addition to the petroleum engineer's arsenal of design and analysis tools. The methodology and calculation procedures developed in the last two decades are based on the recognition that the underground reservoir, the producing well, and the surface liquid and gas handling equipment constitute a complex, interrelated system. Accordingly, any process in any element of the system entails changes that occur not only in the given part but also in the system as a whole. This section introduces the basic principles of systems analysis as adapted to the description of producing well behavior.
2.7.1 Introduction
Petroleum fluids found in an underground reservoir move through a complex system to reach their destinations on the surface. This system is called the production system and comprises the following main components: the reservoir, the producing well, the surface flowline, and the separator. Some of these can further be divided into smaller elements (for example, the well, besides the tubing string, may contain safety and/or gas lift valves, as well as other components). The production system is thus a system of interconnected and interacting elements that all have their own specific performance relationships, but each, in turn, also depends upon and influences the other elements. In order to produce fluids from the well, all components of the system must work together. Thus, the solution of any fluid production problem requires that the production system be treated as...
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