Gas Lift Optimization & Design with Existing Mandrels

According to many industry experts, gas lift is the least understood artificial lift method, but its complexity is not the reason behind its misunderstanding. Instead, the challenge behind gas lift is that after implementing a lousy design, the well will often keep producing, unlike other artificial lift methods (e.g., ESP) that stop producing. Thus, operators fail to recognize design or operating errors that restrain production. Therefore, there is a significant potential to increase production by oil and gas professionals who understand the gas lift system and its fundamental and advanced principles.

This gas lift training teaches practical ways to design and recommend efficient adjustments necessary to get better production from already operating gas lift wells. Our knowledgeable instructor will help you learn about gas lift design factors for various situations to achieve gas lift optimization confidently.

With this targeted gas lift course, students will learn how you can optimize the production of a Gas Lift well with its current gas lift design as well as how you could optimize it by changing the gas lift design using the existing side pocket mandrels.

First, you will gain the necessary knowledge and skills to properly monitor any gas lift well. Well test setup will be presented, with the corresponding metering equipment. Calibration and measurement errors will be discussed so that monitoring can be improved. A review of the available technologies for downhole pressure and temperature gauge will be presented.

Then different levers to achieve gas lift well optimization are presented in the next section of the training. Students will be shown how to increase their gas lift well production by adjusting the gas lift rate, optimizing the choke position, and performing a global gas lift network optimization. A case review then shows how to optimize a gas lift well through a gas lift design change using the existing side pocket mandrels. A practical method is explained so that students can quickly detect the wells in need of gas lift optimization, just by taking a look at surface parameters. The instructor will also explain when the optimization requires pulling the completion for changing the mandrel spacing design.

Students will then be guided to make the gas lift design of a well using abacus (which mandrels should be equipped with a valve, a dummy, or an orifice) so that they can understand the principles behind these choices and how to select their parameters properly (e.g., kick-off pressure). The next part of the training explains how to make such a gas lift design using the software Prosper. The instructor will do a comprehensive review of the “Gas Lift Design – EXISTING MANDRELS” form in Prosper (meaning each parameter to be filled and recommendations on the best option to select).

The last part of this training covers the topic of dual gas lift completion well. This subject is rarely covered in gas lift training. This course presents the instructor’s design and optimization method for such wells, using IPO valves. Students will benefit from the instructor’s knowledge and experience to solve the mystery of dual gas lift completion wells and avoid the common mistakes to unlock the production of these wells.

This lesson is the 4th of a series of 5 designed to help you reach an advanced level in gas lift oil production and operations. It follows the three courses ‘Forms of Gas Lift’, ‘Gas Lift Equipment’, and ‘Gas Lift Unloading Sequence and Mandrel Spacing Design’, and precedes the course ‘Gas Lift Troubleshooting’. After completing this program, you will have the skills to develop and implement appropriate gas lift optimization strategies for efficient and cost-effective production that brings maximum value from any gas lift system.

Objectives:

Participants will acquire a deep understanding of how to optimize gas lift wells. Through the review of cases, they will also learn how to recognize a gas lift well that can be optimized and how to achieve it with the right gas lift operation. Participants will learn the concept of Gas Lift design through an exercise and will be coached to perform such a design themselves using nodal analysis software to assist them (Prosper).

Course Curriculum:

GL optimization and design with existing mandrels:

• Optimization starts by good monitoring
• Optimization by GL rate change
• GL design optimization – cases review
• Can I optimize a GL well by choking it?
• Global network optimization
• How to identify GL wells that can be optimized
• Exercise – Propose a GL design for a well using abacus
• Why changing your SPM design?
• Why changing your GL design using existing mandrels?
• How to determine the targeted liquid rate of a well following a GL design
• Process to perform a GL design using Prosper
• How to fill the “GL design – Existing Mandrels” form in Prosper
• Dual GL completion optimization and design

This course is designed for:

• Production, Petroleum or Well Performance Engineers to understand how to increase the production of their GL wells, how to monitor them properly and how to make a new GL design
• Field Production Personnel to understand how their GL well work and respond better to the questions of their support teams in town
• Completion Engineers to understand fully the needs for a new GL design.

Pre-requisites:

• Understanding of the well production mechanisms (inflow & outlfow) is prefered
• Knowledge of the existing forms of GL and GL equipment (especially GL valves)
• Good understanding of the GL unloading sequence
• Basic knowledge on well architecture
• Awareness on the oilfield terms.

Bonus Material:

• The full video “Introduction to Gas Lift” (18 min) from my course “Introduction to Artificial Lift”
• Gas lift presentation video from Weatherford
• A document from PTC (available on their website as well) giving guidelines for GL design.
• Links to download a GL manual from international supplier, a GL simulator from GL industry expert and access a gas compressibility factor calculator.