New universal two-phase choke correlations developed using non-linear multivariable optimization technique
Abstract
Production of hydrocarbons from the reservoir must go through surface chokes. The choke is installed to control the surface flow rate of the hydrocarbons and produce it at the optimum flow rate. Thus, the production rate follows the recommendation of the production engineers to prevent problems such as water coning. Accurate prediction of the surface flow rate is crucial as it will lead to fulfil the development plan’s goals of the reservoir and optimize the production. Many correlations were developed to predict the flow rate through surface choke and most of them used one set of data from a single reservoir to develop the correlation. Using these correlations, which are based on limited data, might give results with high error. A new optimization technique is used to develop two universal choke correlations for better prediction of the two-phase flow rate for the oil wells. These correlations predict the liquid flow rate as a function of gas-liquid ratio, choke diameter, wellhead pressure, and oil API gravity. A total of 835 field tests from five different reservoirs were used in developing these correlations, thus, covering a wide range of data set. The new choke correlations proved to predict the flow rate with higher accuracy than the existing correlations by approximately 9%. The results from this study will greatly assist petroleum engineers to have particular estimations of liquid flow rates from wellhead chocks.
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