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COBEM 2023
27th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF GAS LIFT INJECTION AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE SLUGGING PHENOMENON IN OFFSHORE PRODUCTION
Submission Author:
Tony Herbert Freire de Andrade , PB
Co-Authors:
Tony Herbert Freire de Andrade, Wayne Gabriel Nóbrega Firme, Átyla Matheus de Araújo Costa, João Ikaro Vitorino Pereira, Tales Dmitri Araujo Lopes
Presenter: Tony Herbert Freire de Andrade
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2023.COB2023-2063
Abstract
Oil extraction is taking place in progressively more complex and inhospitable environments, which characterizes an engineering challenge on several fronts. One of these challenges is the stabilization of flow in marine risers, both to minimize risks and increase productivity. The slugging effect in particular, generated by the multiphase flow in the risers, in certain situations is potentially problematic, this happens due to the fact that it represents a variation in the flow rate and pressure in its usual regime. Severe intermittence ande severe slugging occur under certain conditions of low gas and liquid flows in pipeline configurations with elevation gain, such as a riser. The main characteristic of severe intermittency is that it is pulsating due to the variation in pressure in the riser caused by alternating oil strokes, producing high volumes of oil and also alternating periods producing high volumes of gas. Several methods are applied to mitigate and even mitigate this phenomenon, leading to large investments in the development of new technologies for the optimization and mitigation of problems involving Exploration and Production activities. The injection of lift gas at the base of the riser is one of the alternatives for attenuating the slug pattern, and will be the alternative addressed in this work, with the aid of the computational tool Atificial Lift Flow Assurance Simulation - ALFAsim. Therefore, in this study, a graphical analysis of the parameters is proposed: oil flow std, holdup, flow pattern and elevation, to identify the occurrence of slugging in the pipeline. The mitigation of this flow pattern was done with the injection of a mass source (gas elevator) at the base of the riser. Finally, the work concluded the operational feasibility with the insertion of a mass source in the piping system, guaranteeing operational safety by changing the flow pattern of the riser, from slugs to annular.
Keywords
Slugging, ALFAsim, Flow assurance, multiphase flow
