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Lecture 1- Introduction (1)

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Multiphase Flow in Wells and pipelines

Lecture 1: Introduction

Dr. Mojgan Abbasi


School of Chemical Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering,
University of Tehran

Introduction
• Multiphase Pipe Flow in Oil and Gas Production
o Multiphase flow is the area of fluid mechanics that deals
with the simultaneous flow of two or more immiscible
phases of matter (gas, liquid, or solid).
o Multiphase flow technology has become increasingly
important for:
 the economic transportation of well streams from the reservoir to
processing facilities.

1
Introduction

Piping

Reservoir

Introduction
• Significance of Multiphase Pipe Flow in Oil and
Gas Production
o Wells:
 Pressure drops in production tubing because of fluid flow and
reduction of hydrostatic head
 Produced water and solids
 Temperature drop

2
Introduction
• Significance of Multiphase Pipe Flow in Oil and
Gas Production
o Pipelines:
 Offshore fields (long, large-diameter export pipelines)
 Onshore flowlines and export pipelines (proper design and
operation for safe and economic business)
 Accurate prediction of flow pattern, liquid holdup, pressure
drop, and flow characteristics along these pipeline systems is
essential to enhance not only pipeline design, sizing, and
routing, but also design of downstream separation and
processing facilities to ensure safe and economic business
operation.

Introduction
• Significance of Multiphase Pipe Flow in Oil and
Gas Production
o Wellhead Chokes:
 Multiphase flow across these restrictions is common and
complex.
 Diversity of the flow through restrictions
 Estimating and controlling the system flow rate
 Flow assurance problems

3
Introduction
• Significance of Multiphase Pipe Flow in Oil and
Gas Production
o Other System Components:
 Predicting multiphase flow characteristics upstream of these
devices is critical for their efficiency and integrity.
 In addition, understanding the flow behaviour inside internal
parts improves future design and reliability

Introduction
• Role of Production Engineer
o The role of a production engineer in the petroleum
industry is twofold:
 Safely and economically design a new production system;
 Operate and optimize an existing one
o In both cases, the ultimate objective of the production
engineer is to maximize profit by optimizing flow rate in
a safe environment.
o To achieve this goal, an accurate prediction of flow
behavior and characteristics along the production system
must be determined a priori.

4
Introduction
• Role of Production Engineer
o Three main flow behaviour parameters that the
production engineer should predict along the production
system:
 Flow pattern
 Pressure gradient
 Liquid volume (holdup)
o Prediction of the foregoing flow parameters, coupled
with both proper understanding of the flow behavior and
engineering sense and intuition, can lead to an optimal
flow rate, maximum economic profit, and safe operation.

Introduction
• Example 1: Two-Phase Pipeline Design
o A production engineer is asked to design a two-phase
pipeline to transport 50 Mstdm3/d of gas with certain
liquid loadings from an offshore platform to an onshore
processing facility at 7 MPa arrival pressure. The design
should consider the following criteria:
 Delivery of 50 Mstdm3/d of gas at 7 MPa arrival pressure
 Minimum capital cost (CAPEX), minimum operating cost
(OPEX), and optimized net present value (NPV)
 Environmentally safe operation

5
Introduction
• Example 1: Two-Phase Pipeline Design

Introduction
• Example 1: Two-Phase Pipeline Design

Flow assurance: corrosion inhibitor

6
Historical Overview of Multiphase Flow in Pipes

Brill and Arirachakaran (1992)

Introduction
• Future of Multiphase Flow in Pipes
o The answer to this question is closely related to the
future challenges that face the upstream petroleum
industry.
 Three-phase flow in pipelines and well tubing
 Three-phase flow patterns, as well as water holdup and flow
characteristics such as emulsions, dispersions, and dispersed-
phase droplet size distribution
 Mechanistic modeling of heat transfer that is dependent on flow
pattern (overcome flow assurance challenges of
organic/Inorganic solid formation/deposition)
 Heavy-oil multiphase technology (flow pattern maps)
 Modeling of both natural and imposed transients in multiphase
flow

7
Introduction
• Future of Multiphase Flow in Pipes
o Fortunately, the petroleum industry and the multiphase flow
technology community realize the upcoming future challenges and
are vigorously addressing them.
o Providing technically sound, environmentally safe, and
economically profitable solutions to future challenges is never an
easy matter.
o More importantly, efforts to find solutions require an
interdisciplinary research approach.
o For instance, flow assurance issues require input from physical
chemists, chemical engineers, process engineers, and petroleum
engineers to find a comprehensive solution. Similarly, three-phase
flow in pipes requires collaborative efforts of material scientists,
fluid dynamicists, and engineers.

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