INCREASING THE PERFORMANCE OF CHRISTMAS TREES IN SANDY CONDITIONS

Abstract

The key reason to make this research is to find solutions for mechanical impurities, or commonly sand clogging in christmas trees. As it’s known, christmas trees are equipment made for controlling flow of oil and gas, which consists of several gauges and valves for specific purposes. This equipment installed on wells are constantly clogged with various impurities. These mechanical consistency interrupt christmas tree’s work and cause wears and tears which leads to failure of system and overall oil production delay. Thus, frequent maintenance is required. There are two main ways to release the clogging in wells: mechanical and chemical. In this research, mechanical way is applied. To improve and increase the performance of christmas trees, various types of filters are considered with their advantages and disadvantages according to previous experiences. Studies show that, for different type of wells different type of filters, separators etc. are used. Filters used to prevent sand particles are gravel filter, slot filter, perforated filter, wire well filter, well mesh filter, frame-rod filter, slot filter, support element filters and other filters which are considered in this research. According to the mesh principle, the filters which are a component of the ESP - are intended to prevent sand particles from entering the production stream by holding big particles and filtering the resulting liquid. To choose a filter with the best permeation rate and to stop particles larger than a specific size from penetrating, the size of the channels must be calculated. Modification and other movable factors are used to separate each group of filters. Keywords: Christmas tree (oil and gas), mechanical impurities, sand, filter, oil well, separators.