Safety Distance of Facilities and Personnel in Shale Gas Production Wellsite

Abstract

Shale gas is usually a high-purity methane gas and its content can reach up to 98%-99%, and shale gas well has low production and low wellhead pressure, therefore, jet fire and vapor cloud explosion are very typical accidents after shale gas wells leakage. We use computational fluid dynamics PHAST Software to simulate the consequences of wellhead shale gas leakage fire and explosion under different gas production, wellhead pressure, wind speed and atmospheric stability. We can determine the safety distance of facilities and personnel on the gas production well sites with the thermal radiation and shock wave overpressure damage industry standards for equipment and human body. When the shale gas production is from 4×104m3/d to 20×104m3/d and the wellhead pressure is from 2Mpa to 4.61Mpa, the safe distance between the facilities and the wellhead is 23.2m, and the safe distance between the personnel and the wellhead is 58.9m. These findings are very important to optimize well site layout and to ensure personnel safety, which can achieve safe and efficient development of shale gas.