Enhancing virtual flow metering on offshore oil platforms through parallel computing and data reconciliation

Abstract

Technological advances in recent years have facilitated data accessibility and increased computational resources; consequently, more remarkable numerical performances in data analysis and computational tests have become possible. In this context, parallel computing techniques are considered relevant tools in applications necessitating reduced computational time, such as online and real-time monitoring of industrial processes. For these reasons, the present work develops and implements online and real-time monitoring of offshore oil and gas production, using parallel computing to improve the performance of the data reconciliation methodology implemented, which will estimate the virtual flow metering with more reliability and in real time. To achieve this, three optimization methods (DA, L-BFGS-B, and SLSQP) and two approaches of parallelization schemes were considered: (1) parallelization of the simulations of each production well; (2) parallelization of the numerical gradient, performed by the deterministic optimization method. Parallel implementations allowed the reduction of up to 80% (type 1) and up to 89% (type 2) of the simulation time compared to their serial counterparts. Hence, the parallel execution of type 2 exhibited more promising results, while type 1 demonstrated greater adaptability to optimization methods. Finally, the results indicate that parallel computing techniques facilitate data reconciliation in real-time, enabling online monitoring in a much shorter time and more accurately than achieved with similar sequential procedures. Moreover, the implemented methodology has proven effective for virtual flow metering of each well’s flow rates of oil, water, and gas. In this context, parallelism techniques present the potential for developing the global monitoring of the virtual flow meters for real-time oil, water, and gas flow rates in each well.