Increasing the Productivity of Gas Wells in Conditions of High Water Factors

The overwhelming majority of natural gas fields are at the final stage of development, which, along with other features, is characterized by selective watering of productive deposits and production wells. The difficulty of extracting residual gas reserves under such development conditions is associated with depletion of productive reservoirs, accumulation of fluid at the bottom of wells, corrosion of downhole equipment and the inability to reduce wellhead pressures due to restrictions on the supply and preparation of hydrocarbon products with the existing surface infrastructure. Production wells in conditions of formation water inflow into productive deposits are decommissioned after relatively small gas withdrawals. This is due both to the insufficient implementation of methods for intensifying the removal of fluid from the bottom of the wells, and to the peculiarities of the arrangement of fields, which are usually not designed for the collection and preparation of hydrocarbon products with a high liquid content. In order to remove the gas-liquid mixture from the bottom of the wells, many techniques and inventions have been developed that are widely used in production. The developed technologies are characterized by different efficiency and have a number of technological limitations, mainly due to the peculiarities of the geological structure of hydrocarbon deposits. Considering the above, there is a need for additional research in order to improve the existing and develop new technologies for the operation of water cut wells. Using the special software package, studies were carried out to optimize the operating conditions for a water cut well under conditions of active formation water inflow into gas-saturated horizons. The study was carried out for various depths of gas-lift valves (3500 m; 3000 m; 2500 m; 2000 m; 1500 m; 1000 m) and liquid flow rates (22.5 m3/day; 33.75 m3/day and 45 m3/day). Based on the research results, graphical dependences of gas flow rates and bottomhole pressure on the amount of gas-lift gas were built; the maximum gas flow rate and the required amount of gas-lift gas from the liquid flow rate; maximum gas flow rate versus liquid flow rate at different depths of gas-lift valve installation. Based on the results of statistical processing of the calculated data for each value of the liquid flow rate, the optimal value of the depth of the gas-lift valve was established. According to the results of the studies performed, to ensure the stable operation of high-water cut gas wells, it is effective to locate the gas-lift valve at a distance of 55-58 % from the wellhead of the tubing (2033-2137 m).