The Effect of Sulfur Deposition on Gas Deliverability

Abstract Sour gas reservoirs with high content of sulfur are distributed widely around the world. Solid elemental sulfur which dissolves in the gas phase originally in the reservoir, may deposit when the thermodynamic conditions of the temperature, pressure or composition changes in the process of production. Deposition of solid elemental sulfur may block the pores in the formation and significantly affect the gas deliverability. In this paper, sulfur deposition mechanism is analyzed in the reservoirs. Based on the characteristics of sulfur deposition in the formation, a corrected function is introduced to modify the gas flow. Then, an evaluation method of the effect of sulfur deposition on gas deliverability is presented. For a practical sour gas reservoir, the gas deliverability considering sulfur deposition in formation is calculated and evaluated. The results show that the decrease degree of gas deliverability is different and it depends on the physical parameters in the formation on which the gas well is located.