METHODOLOGY FOR OPTIMIZATION OF WELL FLOWING PROCESSES BASED ON PRINCIPLES OF THEORY OF OIL, GAS, AND WATER UPWARD FLOWS

Abstract

The article deals with improvement of the oil wells operation efficiency with the help of the operation mode optimization that ensures profit enhancement of oil production. There is an inventory of flowing wells in Ukraine. The natural flow production method that is based on usage of solely formation energy is the cheapest among all the other methods and thus it should be implemented as efficiently as possible, i. e. the well operation mode should be optimized. In order to increase the natural flowing period of a flowing well on the basis of an efficient formation energy usage, the efficiency coefficient (EC) of the flowing process was taken. Unlike calculation of the EC of the homogeneous fluid extraction and EC of the gas-liquid lift and carrying-out of the long-term full-scale studies, a method and practical methodology for optimization of flowing wells operation were developed on the basis of the principles of the modern theory of oil, gas, and water mixture upward flows. The
method main idea consists in carrying-out of the numerical experiment with the help of the factual field data about the well, its operation mode, and properties of the fluids. This calculation is based on the mass conservation equation
(with coordination of the formation and well operation through the bottom-hole pressure value) and equation of the oil, gas, and water mixture flow in accordance with the Poettmann-Carpenter method. The calculations are based on usage of the function optimization method that is known as “the method of golden section”. When changing the influencing parameters, we obtain the EC from them and this allows us to optimize the well operation mode.