Use of Natural Gas as a Driving Force in a Diluent-Gas Artificial-Lift System Applied to Heavy Oils

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Jose Brito ◽  
Lenin Garcia ◽  
Juan Carlos Brown
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Heavy Oils ◽  
Artificial Lift

Water-assisted Flow of Heavy Oil in a Vertical Pipe: Pilot-scale Experiments

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio C. Bannwart ◽  
Oscar M. H. Rodriguez ◽  
Jorge L. Biazussi ◽  
Fabio N. Martins ◽  
Marcelo F. Selli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pressure Drop ◽  
Annular Flow ◽  
Water Injection ◽  
Pilot Scale ◽  
Heavy Oils ◽  
Monitoring And Control ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
The Core ◽  
Artificial Lift ◽  
The Individual

The use of the core-annular flow pattern, where a thin fluid surrounds a very viscous one, has been suggested as an attractive artificial-lift method for heavy oils in the current Brazilian ultra-deepwater production scenario. This paper reports the pressure drop measurements and the core-annular flow observed in a 2 7/8-inch and 300 meter deep pilot-scale well conveying a mixture of heavy crude oil (2000 mPa.s and 950 kg/m3 at 35 C) and water at several combinations of the individual flow rates. The two-phase pressure drop data are compared with those of single-phase oil flow to assess the gains due to water injection. Another issue is the handling of the core-annular flow once it has been established. High-frequency pressure-gradient signals were collected and a treatment based on the Gabor transform together with neural networks is proposed as a promising solution for monitoring and control. The preliminary results are encouraging. The pilot-scale tests, including long-term experiments, were conducted in order to investigate the applicability of using water to transport heavy oils in actual wells. It represents an important step towards the full scale application of the proposed artificial-lift technology. The registered improvements in terms of oil production rate and pressure drop reductions are remarkable.

Viscosity Modeling and Prediction of Reservoir Fluids: From Natural Gas to Heavy Oils

2004 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 1353-1366 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. E. Qui�ones-Cisneros ◽  
C. K. Z�berg-Mikkelsen ◽  
A. Baylaucq ◽  
C. Boned
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Heavy Oils ◽  
Modeling And Prediction ◽  
Viscosity Modeling

Risk Assessment and Field Case Study on Oil/Natural Gas Explosion during High-Pressure Air Injection Process

SPE Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Lijuan Huang ◽  
Yu Wang ◽  
Liang Zhang ◽  
Shufeng Pei ◽  
Zhe Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Pressure ◽  
Natural Gas ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Safety Issue ◽  
Fault Tree Analysis ◽  
Air Injection ◽  
Heavy Oils ◽  
Gas Explosion ◽  
Flammability Limits ◽  
Injection Process

Summary Air injection techniques have been widely applied in oil fields, but the associated safety issue of natural gas (NG) and oil explosion has been of great concern. In this study, explosion experiments of different NG compositions were conducted under high-pressure and high-temperature conditions (up to 15 MPa and 373 K) to reveal the necessary conditions for gas explosion in the air injection process. The experimental results indicate that the lower flammability limits (LFLs) and upper flammability limits (UFLs) of NGs change logarithmically with increasing pressure, which can significantly increase the explosion risk. The rise of temperature can also expand the flammability limit range. Based on the mechanisms and necessary conditions for NG and oil component explosion, fault tree analysis (FTA) models for explosion occurring during the air injection process were proposed that can provide valuable guidelines for designing anti-explosion procedures for field applications. Several explosion incidents that have occurred in air injection operations in different oil reservoirs are described, and the explosion mechanisms are analyzed. NG explosion can occur during air injection when NG is the main component present in the gas phase that can mix with air to form a combustible gas. For heavy oils with little NG, autoignited explosion of vaporized oil components can be the main reason for the incidents during the steam and air coinjection process because the autoignition temperature of heavy oil can be greatly reduced at high pressure.

Modeling the Effects of Various Liquid Droplet Sizes in Acoustic Deliquification Techniques

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eiman Al Munif ◽  
Ahmed Alrashed ◽  
Kanat Karatayev ◽  
Jennifer Miskimins ◽  
Yilin Fan
Keyword(s):  
Fluid Dynamics ◽  
Natural Gas ◽  
Computational Time ◽  
Liquid Droplets ◽  
Gas Wells ◽  
Air Velocity ◽  
Liquid Loading ◽  
Artificial Lift ◽  
Tool Surface ◽  
Droplet Sizes

Abstract Liquid loading is a major challenge in natural gas wells. Enhancing the production in liquid loading natural gas wells using an acoustic liquid atomizer tool is proposed as a possible artificial lift method. The effect of different droplet sizes on the transport efficiency and the performance of the proposed technique during production are studied using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation. Also, the liquid behavior and fluid dynamics after applying the atomization mechanism are reviewed. In the model, the tool is placed axially in the middle of the gas/air flowing wellbore. To reduce computational time, the tool and pipe are cut symmetrically. The pipe diameter is 4 in, and the four injectors diameters are each 0.04 in. The orientation of the injectors is set to 90° with the sprayers facing sideways, while water liquid droplets are injected from the tool surface into the air flow at angles from 45° to the flow direction. Unstructured hybrid mesh is used to allow the cells to assemble freely within the complex geometry. Sensitivity tests were conducted with droplet sizes ranging between 30-300 µm. The CFD results showed that water liquid droplets of size 30 µm followed the pathway along the tool surface due to the low mass of the droplets and high air velocity. This phenomenon is called wall impingement and occurs where the droplets are very small and clustering on the wall. The 200 and 300 µm water liquid droplets kept their inertial high chaotic movements in all directions within the computational fluid domain due to the increased weight of the droplets. These larger sized droplets withstand the backpressure from high turbulent air velocity and tend to keep their inertial turbulent movement. This research presents a set of CFD results to further evaluate acoustic atomization as a possible artificial lift technique. This technique has never been commercially applied in the oil and gas industry, and continued evaluation of such methods is a vital addition to the industry as it brings the potential for new lower cost artificial lift technologies. If completely developed, this technique can bring a cost-effective solution compared to conventional artificial lift methods.

Alternative Fuels for Gas Turbine Plants — An Engineering, Procurement, and Construction Contractor’s Perspective

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ram G. Narula
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Natural Gas ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Alternative Fuels ◽  
Heavy Oils ◽  
Liquefied Petroleum Gas ◽  
Massive Growth ◽  
Balance Of Plant ◽  
Private Power

Tightly regulated and state-controlled utilities are rapidly changing into a competitive, market-driven industry, as private power development is being actively pursued worldwide. Accelerated economic growth in developing countries has fueled a massive growth in the power sector. Gas turbine based power plants have become an attractive option; however, many of these developing countries have limited supplies of conventional gas turbine fuels, namely natural gas or distillate oil. Therefore, power developers are seeking alternative fuels. This paper discusses the balance-of-plant (BOP) considerations and economics of using alternative fuels such as liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), naphtha, and crude/heavy oils.

Pipeline–Soil Separation Model for Natural Gas Pipelines Subjected to Parabolic Driving Force

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 04018028 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenqi Wang ◽  
Changdong Li ◽  
Wenqiang Liu ◽  
Jiao Wang ◽  
Junjie Wu
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Gas Pipelines ◽  
Natural Gas Pipelines ◽  
Separation Model

scholarly journals Combustion and Oxidation Kinetics of Alternative Gas Turbines Fuels

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre-Alexandre Glaude ◽  
Baptiste Sirjean ◽  
René Fournet ◽  
Roda Bounaceur ◽  
Matthieu Vierling ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Ignition Temperature ◽  
Alternative Fuels ◽  
Flame Temperature ◽  
Liquid Fuels ◽  
Heavy Oils ◽  
Process Gas ◽  
Auto Ignition

Heavy duty gas turbines are very flexible combustion tools that accommodate a wide variety of gaseous and liquid fuels ranging from natural gas to heavy oils, including syngas, LPG, petrochemical streams (propene, butane…), hydrogen-rich refinery by-products; naphtha; ethanol, biodiesel, aromatic gasoline and gasoil, etc. The contemporaneous quest for an increasing panel of primary energies leads manufacturers and operators to explore an ever larger segment of unconventional power generation fuels. In this moving context, there is a need to fully characterize the combustion features of these novel fuels in the specific pressure, temperature and equivalence ratio conditions of gas turbine combustors using e.g. methane as reference molecule and to cover the safety aspects of their utilization. A numerical investigation of the combustion of a representative cluster of alternative fuels has been performed in the gas phase, namely two natural gas fuels of different compositions, including some ethane, a process gas with a high content of butene, oxygenated compounds including methanol, ethanol, and DME (dimethyl ether). Sub-mechanisms have specifically been developed to include the reactions of C4 species. Major combustion parameters, such as auto-ignition temperature (AIT), ignition delay times (AID), laminar burning velocities of premixed flames, adiabatic flame temperatures, and CO and NOx emissions have then been investigated. Finally, the data have been compared with those calculated for methane flames. These simulations show that the behaviors of alternative fuels markedly differ from that of conventional ones. Especially, DME and the process gases appear to be highly reactive with significant impacts on the auto-ignition temperature and flame speed data, which justifies burner design studies within premixed combustion schemes and proper safety considerations. The behaviors of alcohols (especially methanol) display some commonalities with those of conventional fuels. In contrast, DME and process gas fuels develop substantially different flame temperature and NOx generation rates than methane. Resorting to lean premix conditions is likely to achieve lower NOx emission performances. This review of gas turbine fuels shows for instance that the use of methanol as a gas turbine fuel is possible with very limited combustor modifications.

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