Publications

Gas lift is one of artificial lift methods used in oil production system, which may involve single as well as multiple oil producing wells. Available gas for injection process is usually limited and needs an optimal allocation for each well to obtain maximum total oil production from the operated field. An optimization model is constructed here to obtain the maximum total oil production. The corresponding constraints consist of limitation of total allocated gas, and flow performance in each well. Approximate solutions of Gas Lift Performance Curves (GLPC) are obtained using 4th order Runge-Kutta method and Cubic Spline Interpolation. Then by applying finite difference method, we can calculate the gradient of nodes along the curve. Further, with Gradient Method, gas allocation was iterated, we obtain the optimum total oil production and the corresponding allocated gas in each well. This numerical method offers a simple and fast approach to obtain optimum allocation of gas injection for each operating well. In addition, a linear optimization is also presented here as another option to approach the allocation optimization by utilizing the GLPC from all gas lift wells. Keywords: Gas Lift, Gas Lift Allocation, Gradient Method, Spline Interpolation.