Case study

Field-wide gas lift optimisation offshore

On an offshore field with a gas lift stock of 10 wells, a field-wide optimisation was carried out: reallocating injection gas between wells increased oil production without increasing total lift gas consumption.

Optimisation target

Location
Asia-Pacific
Field type
Offshore field
Lift method
Gas lift wells
Well stock
10 wells

The problem

Starting point

Total lift gas injection could not be increased. Gas lift wells raised oil using injected gas, which lightened the fluid column in the tubing. Gas for all wells came from the compressors on the central platform, and their capacity capped the total injection volume.

Wells responded to gas differently. On some, additional gas gave a noticeable oil gain; on others, the gain levelled off quickly, and additional gas barely increased production. In addition, all wells flowed into a shared gathering network, so higher production at one well raised network pressure and reduced the rate of its neighbours. Any well could get more gas only at the expense of the others.

Solution

Field-wide optimisation programme

Under the initial allocation, part of the gas went to wells where it barely increased production, while other wells could have produced more oil with additional injection.

The field-wide optimisation algorithm treated the field as a single system. For each well, it calculated the gas return: how much oil the whole field gains from an additional unit of gas, taking into account the well's effect on its neighbours through the gathering network. Gas was then moved from wells with a low return to wells with a high one. The injection gas rate for each well served as the control input.

The reallocation continued until the return evened out across all producing wells. Total injection stayed within the compressor capacity throughout. As a result, the field produced more oil with the same total gas consumption.

The diagram illustrates the principle of field-wide optimisation on a simplified offshore field model. The number of wells and the values on the diagram are notional and do not correspond to the project data. Drag the scene to rotate it, and click a well to open its cross-section.

Result

  • +23.7%

    daily oil production

  • ±0

    change in lift gas injection, thousand m³/d

  • +$ 5,700

    free cash flow (FCF)

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We will explain how field-wide gas lift optimisation can be applied to your well stock and what input data it requires.

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