An Investigation of the Gathering System Options for a Hypothetical Field with Uniformly Distributed Production Wells

Abstract

The gathering systems in the production wells are very crucial in the transportation of produced liquids from production wells to collection points such as the processing plant or central processing facilities. Liquid transmission pipelines are a part of the energy industry which involves the transportation of natural crude oil through pipelines. In this research the pipeline costs, material costs are proportional to pipeline diameter, whilst construction and design costs are approximately constant. The research shows that the bigger the length of the flow line, the bigger the total pressure drop, per unit length of the flow line for a given size and the type of pipe, the total pressure drop increases with length, whilst the pressure increases from 100 kpa to 250 kpa, and the length of the flow lines increases from 5.4 km to 12.5 km. The inlet pressure of 600 psig was used, as maximum inlet pressure with a design pressure of 1215 psig, with the assumption that protection against closed in tubing head pressure (CITHP) was protected. The investigation shows that a single flow line or trunk lines are not economical in transporting the fluids from the production wells, due to high -pressure drop in the flowline segments and it can affect pipeline diameters since pressure drop can lead to excess inlet pressure to push the liquid through the flow line and the operating costs can be excessive and result in insufficient pressure to pump or transport the fluids to the central processing facility. The modeling of the pressure drop in the flowline at different rates and for different sizes of nominal pipeline in the gathering systems was achieved.