Overview: Production Operations (March 2007)

Welcome to the Production Operations feature once again. Some of the issues that production-operations engineers must address in their daily work include multiphase flow in production systems, well-productivity changes, and production-performance testing and analysis. These issues often are compounded when compositional changes occur in the produced reservoir fluids, as is commonly encountered in the production of gas-condensate reservoirs. This year's Production Operations feature includes some very interesting research and some practical applications of the measurement and evaluation of well performance in multiphase-flow operations. There is significant need for a better understanding of the complex phenomena associated with multiphase flow in production systems, including the metering of fluid flow, the effects that multiphase flow and reservoir-fluid-compositional changes have on well productivity, and the overall production-system performance under multi-phase-and nonlinear-flow conditions. With improved multiphase-flow metering and testing, improved wellbore multiphase-flow modeling, and more-realistic well-completion-efficiency evaluation, the production-operations engineer can make better-informed decisions about a well's performance and its potential for improvement. The articles presented in this issue highlight some of the advances being made to improve the measurement and evaluation of the production performance of wells in oil and gas-condensate reservoirs. Production Operations additional reading available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org SPE 103255 "Optimizing the Productivity of Gas-Condensate Wells" by C. Shi, SPE, Stanford U., et al. SPE 102231 "Modeling Nonisothermal Rapid Multiphase Flow in Wells Under Nonequilibrium Conditions" by G. Michel, U. of Oklahoma, et al. SPE 103222 "Rate Allocation Using Permanent Downhole Pressures" by M. McCracken, SPE, ExxonMobil Upstream Research, et al.