Case study
Choke-based virtual flow metering
On an offshore gas condensate field where a Venturi meter measured the rate of each well, a virtual flowmeter model was built on the wellhead choke: it calculated gas rate from telemetry and kept the well metered while a Venturi was failed or under maintenance.
Deployment site
- Location
- Asia-Pacific
- Field type
- Offshore gas condensate field
- Lift method
- Flowing wells
- Well stock
- 21 wells
The problem
Starting point
The objective was to back up the Venturi meters with a rate calculation independent of their readings. The key metrics were gas rate and condensate rate. The platform had 21 gas condensate wells, each fitted with a Venturi meter that measured the rate from the pressure drop across a constriction in the pipe. The wells were split into two groups, each flowing to its own separator with an accurate gas meter.
A Venturi meter could fail or be taken out for maintenance, leaving the well unmetered for that time. In addition, the client estimated its measurement error at about 20% for water and 10% for condensate. An independent calculation was therefore needed that would keep determining the rate when a Venturi read zero or was clearly wrong.
Solution
Virtual flowmeter model
The calculation targets were the gas and condensate rates through the wellhead choke of each well. The choke regulates flow from the well, and the pressures upstream and downstream of it, together with its opening, determine how much fluid passes through. Two approaches were used.
A physical choke model calculated the gas-liquid flow from the pressures upstream and downstream of the choke and its percentage opening. The model was tuned on choke calibrations separately for each opening: a single correction factor was not enough when a well ran outside the calibrated range. In parallel, a machine learning model was trained for each well on its operating history: choke opening, pressures and temperatures at the bottomhole, wellhead and manifold. The Venturi readings themselves were not used as inputs. Condensate rate was calculated using our own PVT model, which describes the phase behaviour of the gas condensate mixture as pressure and temperature change.
Accuracy was checked by the totals: the calculated rates of a group's wells had to match the accurate meter on its separator. Good agreement was achieved for both phases, gas and condensate. After the field moved to low-pressure operation, the model was retrained on the new data. On one well, the Venturi meter read zero with the choke open, while the model continued to calculate a rate in the normal range. This is exactly the situation the backup was built for.
Result
≤1.6%
gap between the sum of calculated gas rates and the separator meter
16 of 20
wells with a gas rate error of 1% or less
21
wells on the platform covered by the virtual flowmeter
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Training for working with a complex well stock. Courses, practice on simulators and preparing engineers to use the IDT product line.
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