Prediction of Gas Wells Performance Using Wellhead and Production Data

Abstract

The monitoring of gas wells is quite challenging principally because the gas supply contract is usually signed before the gas production commences. Consequently, production potential above the daily contractual quantity is normally maintained to ensure that gas demand is met even in the case of unexpected closure of any of the gas wells. Therefore, meeting the gas demand sometimes does not allow regular data acquisition as required. In the approach presented in this study, the well and production data were used to estimate the productivity parameters at the bottom hole condition of a gas well using correlation. The correlation predicts the flowing bottom hole pressure for every set of production data. The estimated flowing bottom hole pressures compare favorably with the measured data. Using the predicted flowing bottom hole pressure, the gas well productivity parameters are determined. The resulting inflow performance relationship of the well demonstrates the reliability of this method in real time well performance evaluation. The application of this method is presented using a gas well that initially had poor performance but which improved significantly after an acid stimulation.