A STUDY OF PRODUCTION OPTIMIZATION (A NODAL ANALYSIS APPROACH USING PROSPER)

ABSTRACT
Crude oil production is a major requirement to sustaining the wellbeing of any petroleum company. It entails the effective placement of all facilities and equipment; surface or subsurface in order to achieve optimum volume of crude oil production. This is usually called Production Optimization. In this study, the software PROSPER was utilized to case study wells P-P1 and P-P2. Well P-P1 (short string) and Well P-P2 (long string) were producing at its peak oil rates of 2000STB/day and 2500STB/day at 0% water cut but since then production has been on the decline due to increasing water cut and decreasing reservoir pressure. But to date, Well P-P1 becomes a dead well while Well P-P2 is producing at an oil rate of 1200STB/day at a water-cut of 40%. Thereafter an optimization plan scenarios such as sensitivity runs on the water cut, reservoir pressure and gaslift techniques for the dual string well were simulated in PROSPER and then evaluated. The results of this work suggests that; at present reservoir pressures of 3000psig and 3500psig for Well P-P1 and Well P-P2 with optimum gas injection rates of 3.3MMscf/day and 2.7MMscf/day, the well’s life can be extended to an economical water cut of 90% and 95% respectively. Also, the oil production rates increased from 0STB/day and 1200STB/day at 50% and 40% water cut to about 900STB/day and 1500STB/day for Wells P-P1 and P-P2 respectively.