Capitalizing on Steady-State Multiphase Simulation to Improve Rate Measurement Process

This paper describes effective use of a multi-phase simulator software to meter the production virtually and accurately from a group of wells that are produced through a production system and have their individual rate tests measured at different conditions. In an oil production system with no metering devices installed on individual wells, multi-phase flow is measured separately for each well in the production system. To optimize well rate testing in such complicated system, steady-state multi-phase flow simulators are used to model the actual production system. A well-calibrated model can be practically utilized to get the most of the discrete measurement data. Hydraulic surface network simulation was utilized to mimic two operation modes, namely, production mode which simulates normal production conditions and rate test mode which simulates each well flowing individually to rate testing equipment for measuring its flow rate. This approach mandates the use of available rate testing and flowing pressure data to improve the fidelity of the hydraulic simulation model. The high certainty steady-state multi-phase simulation can be used to enhance rate metering accuracy and to optimize production from the modelled wells. Multi-phase hydraulic simulation is a powerful tool to thoroughly understand fluid flow from the reservoir to surface production facilities. Such an inexpensive approach is considered efficient as it could yield a continuous representation of the production system with available field data. It relies on NODAL Analysis which is an integrated analytical approach to examine the performance of the entire production system at each individual component.