Smart Gas Lift Valves Enhance Operational Efficiency of Offshore Wells

Abstract In a conventional gas lift system, dummy valves are loaded in side pocket mandrels to isolate the annulus from the tubing where pressurization is required to test the tubing, test the annulus, set a hydraulic packer or activate an isolation device. Then for gas lift, wireline intervention would be required to remove the dummy valves and install the live gas lift string. This can be a long, cumbersome process that can damage existing infrastructure and delay production while new live valves are installed. This paper presents a smart gas lift valve with disintegrable nanostructured composite material technology. The valve is installed in the well to function as a dummy valve during completion operations and then convert from a dummy valve to a live valve through in-situ disintegration of a nanostructured composite plug in brine during cleanup process. This eliminates multiple slickline trips or well intervention costs to replace dummy valves with live valves and significantly increases completion operation efficiency of offshore wells. The nanostructured composite plug is high strength, is chemically resistant to drilling mud, is slightly reactive with fresh water and disintegrates within 12 to 50 hours in salt water. The smart gas lift valves were successfully installed in 42 new wells that were artificially producing with gas lift offshore Southeast Asia. The nanostructured material, the valve design, the lab test data and results from successful field tests will be presented.