Case study
Field-wide gas lift optimisation on an onshore field
On an onshore field in the Volga-Ural oil and gas province, a field-wide optimisation of the gas lift well stock was carried out: reallocating rates between wells made it possible to remove part of the lift gas from the system while increasing oil production.
Optimisation target
- Location
- Volga-Ural oil and gas province
- Field type
- Onshore field
- Lift method
- Gas lift wells
- Well stock
- 600 wells
The problem
Starting point
Production was limited by strong interaction between wells through shared infrastructure. The output of all wells went into a common gathering network, and its pipelines were loaded unevenly.
When the rate at one well was increased, pressure in the shared pipelines rose and the rate of neighbouring wells fell. The constraint arose at the level of the whole system, and overall production dropped. The field was operating with excess gas: further increasing total lift gas injection was already reducing production rather than raising it.
Solution
Field-wide optimisation programme
The optimisation target was the reallocation of rates between wells. Rates were reduced at wells that created a constraint in the gathering network and increased where pipeline load was lower.
The field-wide optimisation algorithm treated the field as a single system and assessed how a change at one well would affect production of the whole field, taking into account its effect on neighbouring wells through the gathering network. Field production as a function of total lift gas injection had a maximum, and it lay at a lower gas rate than the initial operating point. The injection gas rate for each well served as the control input.
The reallocation removed the constraints in the gathering network and moved the field closer to maximum production. As a result, part of the lift gas was removed from the system, while daily oil production increased.
Result
−20%
of lift gas removed from the system
+2%
daily oil production
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