Measurement of Oil–Gas–Water Flows in Vertical Pipes Using Electromagnetic Flowmeter and Dual-Conductance Sensors

Abstract

Three-phase flows are significantly complicated in comparison to single-phase flows and gas–liquid two-phase flows. So far, faced with the presence of two nonconductive dispersed phases in oil–gas–water three-phase flows, the measurement characteristics of electromagnetic flowmeter (EMF) in three-phase flows are an unresolved problem. The flowrate of three-phase flows is difficult to measure due to the nonuniformity arising from interactions between dispersed phases. Aiming at the difficult problem of production logging in oil wells of three-phase flows, this article reports an experimental study on measuring three-phase flows via the EMF and the dual-conductance sensors. Among them, the phase holdups of three-phase flow in vertical pipe are extracted through newly designed distributed coaxial double-ring conductance sensor (DRCS) and rotating electric field conductance sensor (REFCS). A three-phase flow loop test in a pipe of 20 mm inner diameter is carried out. The results show that the EMF has the ability to substantively measure the flowrate of water phase under three flow patterns (bubble, slug, and churn flows) when the water cut is above 60%, and the average absolute percentage deviation (AAPD) for prediction of superficial water velocity is 3.55%. The measurement of superficial gas and oil velocities is implemented by solving the drift-flux models of three-phase flow based on the phase holdups and superficial water velocity, and the AAPDs for predictions of superficial gas and oil velocities are 4.33% and 5.95%, respectively. This research provides a new measurement strategy for production logging of oil, gas, and water three-phase flow production profile by combining the EMF with dual-conductance sensors.