Development and verification of a numerical simulator to calculate the bottom hole flowing pressures in multiphase systems

Abstract

A vast amount of research has been conducted on the subject of pressure drop in muldphase flow systems. The simulator developed for this research incorporates the Beggs and Brill model for pressure drop prediction with an equation of state for the calculation of fluid Properties. Most of the simulators in use today use correlations to calculate the fluid Properties; hence, the use of an equation of state for such Purposes is a novel and more fundamental approach. The objective of this study was to show that more accurate estimates of bottom hole flowing pressures could be obtained by using the equation of state instead of correlations for fluid properties. Data from 56 wells were tested. The geographical locations for these wells were mostly from the Middle East, but there were some wells located in offshore Louisiana. There was a wide range Of variation in the variables for each well, some of these were: flow rates, gas/oil ratios, total depths, tubing sizes, fluid Compositions, and water cuts. The values Of bottom hole flowing pressures obtained by coupling the Beggs and Brill model with the equation of state were compared with the results from Beggs and Brill coupled with fluid property correlation, and with the measured values of bottom hole flowing pressures. It was found that the equation of state helped the model to predict better estimates for flowing Pressures, by analyzing more data. Thus, the model developed for this research, which uses more data than the conventional models, was found to be far superior to the conventional models.