Well Problem

[dretman]

We had a problem that the well produce intermittently by producing oil for few hrs ( 2 or 3 hrs ) then stop flowing for 8 or 10 hrs then reflow again.
Please I need any help concerning this behavior and how to control this well

[BSBSBSBS]

Your well might be experiencing unstable flowing conditions. Assuming this is what is really happening (making a huge assumption here!), do you remember when you studied nodal analysis and your lecturer made you plot an IPR curve and a VLP curve? Well more than likely he/she would have given you an example where your VLP curve intersects your IPR curve at only 1 point and he/she would have told you that this was the natural flow point, however, in reality, your VLP may intersect your IPR at two points and when your well is approaching its time to give up flowing at the given completion configuration, your VLP curve will cut your IPR curve at 2 very close points, so your well will be switching back and forth between 3 flowing conditions, one where there is high FBHP and low rate and the other where there is low FBHP and high rate, and in between is where there is no flow where the well's FBHP is too high for the VLP's lift requirement for natural flow. If you plot your IPR and VLP curves correctly (I recommend using Prosper or Pipesim) right now you will see this phenomenon. To solve this, you should do sensitivities on tubing size and evaluate for using a smaller tubing. If possible, this is a good time to start implementing gas lift. With gas lift you may experience the same problem, except in that case, you just increase gas injection rate. Tell me if I'm wrong or right, I'm not thorough with this subject, I'm open to corrections, I'm still learning.

Regards,
BSBSBSBS

[dretman]

Thanks Sir;

Yes you are right and i think also that the problem is due to tubing size is not matched