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.

The diagram illustrates the principle of field-wide optimisation on a simplified gas lift 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

  • −20%

    of lift gas removed from the system

  • +2%

    daily oil production

Leave your contact details and we'll reach out

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

hello@industrial-dt.com+998 88 717 55 08@oil_gas_pt