Research on Temperature Distribution for Tubing Liquid with Hot Natural Gas Injected Annulus Using Gas Lift

Abstract

In light of the difficulty including the complicacy of heat transfer process with hot natural gas injected in gas lift annulus, regular temperature prediction methods are commonly used to consider the tubing fluid temperature for the heat transfer from tubing to annulus, actually the tubing fluid will not be the external heat transfer but it will be heated by annulus when the gas temperature in annulus is higher than the tubing fluid temperature, as well as especially the prediction of tubing wellhead temperature in terms of fluid temperature distribution traits in annulus and tubing, regular temperature prediction methods manifest limitation due to their applicability. Based on the fairly comprehensive tubing fluid temperature distribution prediction model with consideration of Thomson effect and such factors as kinetic energy, annular convection heat transfer and phase change etc. developed by the predecessors, and according to the basic principle of conservation of energy and heat transfer, the actual heat transfer process with hot natural gas injected in gas lift annulus was considered as a plus in this paper. The models for actual heat transfer and tubing fluid modified temperature prediction were established and eventually, the models were verified via multiple field tests. The reliability, capable of satisfying the requirements of engineering precision, in terms of temperature distribution of model prediction was proved.