Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2023
27th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
ESP Performance Analysis Operating with Stable Water-in-Oil Emulsions
Submission Author:
Andrey Felipe Casas Pulido , SP
Co-Authors:
Andrey Felipe Casas Pulido, Natan Augusto Vieira Bulgarelli, William Monte Verde, Roberto Fernando Leuchtenberger, Marcelo Souza de Castro
Presenter: Andrey Felipe Casas Pulido
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2023.COB2023-0254
Abstract
One of the most widely used artificial lift methods in terms of oil production is the Electric Submersible Pump (ESP). This method stands out for its high production capacity and operation in severe conditions. One of the conditions the ESP system can face is multiphase flow, such as finely dispersed water in crude oil continuous medium, commonly known as emulsions. Due to the complex rheological behavior involved, the emulsion effective viscosity is one of the biggest challenges in ESP systems, since it can heavily decrease its performance and also lead to operational instabilities near the phase inversion point. This work aims to analyze the effective viscosity inside an ESP under water/oil stable emulsion flow. The experiments were carried out in a closed flow loop at the Experimental Laboratory of Petroleum – LabPetro at CEPETRO – UNICAMP using an eight-stage ESP operating with oil/water emulsion flow. The stable emulsion was prepared using mineral oil, 1 wt% of SPAN 80 on oil and tap water to represent the crude oil/water emulsion. Experiments were performed for a rotation speed of the ESP of 2400 rpm and a temperature of 30°C for 12, 20 and 32% of water cut. An indirect model was used to determine the effective viscosity of the emulsion within the ESP. An increase in the emulsion's effective viscosity due to the decrease in the ESP dimensionless flow rate was observed from the experimental investigation. An increase in the relative viscosity of the stable emulsion was also evident as the ESP rotational speed increases. Furthermore, ESP performance operating with emulsion decreases as the water cut increases due to the emulsion effective viscosity increment until the phase inversion point. Moreover, the results presented a possible evidence of the non-Newtonian fluid behavior with shear-thinning characteristics during the ESP tests.
Keywords
Emulsion effective viscosity, Water-in-oil emulsion, Electrical Submersible Pump (ESP)
