STUDY OF SLUG CONTROL TECHNIQUES IN PIPELINE SYSTEMS

STUDY OF SLUG CONTROL TECHNIQUES IN PIPELINE SYSTEMS JOSÉ L. A,VIDAL Petrobrás Research Center - CENPES/PDEP/TOOL Av.Horácio de Macedo 95- Cidade Universitária 191-915 -Rio de Janeiro-RJ E-mail:josearias@petrobras.com.br PAULO C.C, MONTEIRO Ocean Engineering Department, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, COPPE/UFRJ Cidade Universitária Bloco C - Ilha do Fundão 195-97- Rio de Janeiro-RJ E-mail:camara@lts.coppe.ufrj.br Abstract - Severe slugging may occur at low flow rate conditions when a downward inclined pipeline is followed by a vertical riser. This phenomenon is undesirable for offshore oil and gas production due to large pressure and flow rate fluctuations. It is of great technological relevance to develop reliable and economical means of severe slugging mitigation. This study aims to develop an automated control system to detect and mitigate the formation of severe slugging through a choke valve and a series of sensors. As a first step, an overall flow map is generated to indicate the region within which severe slugging may occur based on Boe s criterion (Boe, A, 191 ) and Taitel s model (Taitel, Y.,19; Taitel, Y., 199). It was possible to obtain different (Taitel, Y., 19) flow patterns by controlling the rate of water and gas injection. The aim of this paper is, however, the formation of severe slugs and study of mitigation techniques. In the control part, we used a choke valve controlled by software which is in feedback with data from a system with pressure, temperature, flow, which are able to measure even small changes in the relevant parameters to the model. A two-phase flow loop was built for the study of severe slugging in pipeline-riser system with air and water as work fluids. The inner diameter of riser and flowline is 7. mm. The riser is meters high and the flowline is 15 meters long and could be inclined upward or downward up to -degree. It has been shown by experiments how riser slugging can be controlled by automated control system. Keywords-severe slugging, slug control, flow, flowline, hydrodynamic, slug periods, slug length, riser, control algorithm, automatic control. 1 Introduction The multiphase flow occurs in many processes in the oil industry, in the production and transportation, wells and the links between these and platforms. Several studies have been undertaken in order to predict their behavior as this has a large effect on the productivity and safety of equipment (Schmidt, 195; Pots, B. F. M.,197). The flow of gas and liquid simultaneously have various types of configurations or patterns, depending on the operating variables, speed, fluid pressure, pipe diameter and inclination angle. It is known that the equations that predict the behavior of fluids vary considerably according to the type of flow. Among the flow patterns, the intermittent was the object of study of this project. According to the literature, the intermittent flow can be subdivided into plug flow and slug flow. The plug flow occurs in general for low flow rates and bubble are free flowing inside the liquid. At high flow rates of gas bubbles have small size as the fluid was aerated. The slug flow may also be divided into two types, the hydrodynamic and severe. The hydrodynamic slug can form in horizontal sections or wells and risers. The severe intermittence or slug occurs from the accumulation of fluid in the sections downhill by gravitational effect. This phenomenon can occur in pipeline-riser systems, which the pipeline is downhill and soon rises to the riser. At low flow rates of liquid and gas, due to the accumulation of fluid in the riser blocking the passage of gas, resulting in its compression. When the gas pressure exceeds the hydrodynamic pressure of the fluid in the riser, the gas arises expanding and pushing the fluid in the column to the separator. This phenomenon results in periods without production followed by a large amount of liquid and gas as well as sudden changes in pressure. Slug, therefore is the formation of large gas bubbles in a flow regime that occurs within the multiphase pipeline transportation and production of hydrocarbons. Characterized by large variations in flow and pressure occurring in the whole process of production and 33

transportation. The slugs generate Belo Horizonte, undesirable MG, a de Setembro de 1 consequences in the process of oil production, such as no oil periods, followed by high oil production within the separator. The reduction in production capacity, emergency stop on the platform due to the high liquid level in the separator, corrosion and wear to the process equipment and high maintenance costs are some consequences of this phenomenon. The development of slug flow regime starts from stratified flow due to two factors: the natural growth of small disturbances present in the flow or due to accumulation of fluid caused by slope changes in the profile of the duct. A scenario in which this can occur comes from wells whose production line slope is downward, still associated to the presence of stratified flow regime. A few systematic studies have been conducted to account for the changes in the operational conditions when applying methods to eliminate severe slugging (Jansen, F. E. & Shoham, 199), the most used technics for eliminations are gas injection (gas lift) (Hill, T. J. 199; Hill, T. J. 199) and choke valve systems (Schmidt, Z.1979). This work deals this problem using choke valve procedure through automatization control and algorithm and cascade PID. Experiments Figure 1: Vertical column with meters high. As proposed in this article, mitigation slug flow is the main objective of this project. To achieve it was necessary to conduct a study of the hydrodynamics of the flow. This phase, coordinated by Prof. Su Jian, was aimed to determine the conditions necessary for producing a slug flow regime in the duct system. The system characteristics such as pressure drop, inclination, height of vertical section, length inclined section and flow of gas and liquid. Those parameters were used to perform the simulations. The simulations aimed at guiding the experimental tests, providing the flow parameters of water and air which were used in the tests. Initially we attempted to reproduce the types of flows in the system until the slug flow regime, and then used the automatic control valve to mitigate them. The loop system can be divided into three parts: pipes, pump and injection system and acquisition/control system. This setup consists of a PVC and acrylic pipes with inch of diameter and total length of 1 m. It has a vertical column with m high and a water reservoir representing the riser-separator system, an inclinable section with 1 m long that can be inclined by ± ºC representing the region between the flowline and the touch-down point as shown in Figure 1 and Figure. Figure : Inclinable section with 1 meters long. The injection system is divided into two: the circulation of water and injection of compressed air. A hp computer-controlled pump makes the circulation of water. A compressor and a computer-controlled flow valve perform the compressed air injection system. The acquisition system is based on a set of two multivariable sensors (pressure, flow and temperature) and two controllers for the valves, one for compressed air and the other for the water choke valve that used for slug mitigate and control. A PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) using PID and Cascade PID link all the sensors and controllers for parameters control. 333

3 Control Algorithm There are two possible types of control for this setup: Bottom Control and Platform control. In both cases, the control is performed by cascade PID with the pressure in master loop and flow in slave loop.this configurations aims to prevent that the control valve produces pressure peaks that may result in damage to the pipe. 3.1 Bottom Control In bottom control configuration the control valve, the pressure and flow sensors are on the seabed by means of sensors located at the wellhead. Presents the advantage of the ability to anticipate the slug before reaching the platform. Figure 3 shows a schematic drawing of the control in the bottom. Figure : Schematic of platform control. Results To identify the flow conditions that produce slugs, tests were performed with different water flows keeping the gas flow constant. The results for flow are shown in Figure 5. It is possible to see the flow behavior of twophase fluid flow in different water flow rates for the same gas flow. We observe that occur at low flows rates large fluctuations in flow, these represent the slug, and tend to diminish with increasing pump flow rate. Figure 3: Schematic of bottom control. 3. Platform Control In this control way, all the sensing are accomplished by measuring pressure and flow at the top, in platform. Has the advantage of easy access to the sensor network, however, requires the control to be fast in mitigating slugs. The schematic of the platform control is shown in Figure. 5 15 Air Flow = l/min 7.3 m 3 /h 7.5 m 3 /h. m 3 /h.9 m 3 /h 9.35 m 3 /h 9.5 m 3 /h 5 5 15 5 3 35 5 5 Figure 5: Flow conditions with different pump flows. 33

Pressure (psi) 1 1 Air Flow = l/min 7.3 m 3 /h 7.5 m 3 /h. m 3 /h.9 m 3 /h 9.35 m 3 /h 9.5 m 3 /h Slug Period (s) 1 1 7.3 m 3 /h 7.5 m 3 /h. m 3 /h 3 5 1 1 1 1 Air Flow (l/min) Figure : Pressure conditions with different pump flows. We also examine the behavior of the pressure in an equivalent position at the bottom, or near the riser while maintaining the gas flow rate constant. The result is shown in Fig.. It is also observed that the presence of fluctuations decrease with increasing pump flow. Other results were obtained for different water flows. It should be noted that two different flow rates were measured, the water flow at the pump outlet (pump flow) and other measures in the study region (two phase flow), this is justified by the fact that during the occurrence of slug biphasic flow variation is considerably large to be used as a defined parameter. Interestingly, however, analyze the variation of these parameters (two phase flow and pressure) rather than the average over the occurrence of slug flow. Based on the results shown in Fig. 5 and was possible to determine correlation with the flow of water and air of great interest parameters: duration and period of the slug, through this analysis was possible to observe the effect of control used in the mitigation. Figure 7 shows the variation of the period of the slugs due to the increase of pump flow and gas flow. It is observed that there is a decrease in function of increased pump flow as the flow of gas, this behavior occurs until there is no more slugs and the flow becomes a sparse bubble. Figure 7: Slug periods for different flows of water and gas. Slug Lenght (s) 75 7 5 55 7.3 m 3 /h 7.5 m 3 /h. m 3 /h 5 1 1 1 1 Air Flow (l/min) Figure : Slug lengths for different flows of water and gas. The same applies to the length of the slug, this becomes increasingly faster until they can no longer be observed. The results are shown in Fig.. Another form of analysis is the use of variation of flow and pressure instead of absolute measurements, this method avoids measurement errors due to lack of calibration of the sensors used on platforms or oil and gas production plants. The following results, shown in Fig. 9 shows the evolution of the two-phase flow variation measurements at the base of the riser as function of air flow. The results show the decrease of flow variations with increasing pump flow, meaning that increasing the velocity of the air-water mixture obtains a reduction of the effects of slugging. On the other hand, the increase of the gas injection also causes an increase in the effect of variation in slug flow of the mixture. 335

3..5 7.3 m 3 /h 7.5 m 3 /h. m 3 /h control was square wave type with the same length of slug. 5.1 Manual Control Flow variation (m 3 /h). 1.5 1..5 1 1 1 1 Air flow (l/min) Figure 9: Flow variation for different flows of water and gas. The results presented below show comparisons between variations in flow and pressure with and without the use of manual control. Figure 11 shows flow during slug cycles for cases with and without manual control and Fig. 1 shows the results for pressure. The result shows that there was no great differences between this with or without control. 9 No Control Manual Control 1 1 7.3 m 3 /h 7.5 m 3 /h. m 3 /h 7 Pressure variation (psi) 1 1 5 5 15 5 3 35 5 5 Figure 11: Flow comparison with and without manual control. 1 1 1 1 Air flow (l/min) Figure : Pressure variation for different flows of water and gas. In Figure, there is a similar behavior to the pressure variation due to increases in pump flow and the injection of gas, the first one causes a decrease of the pressure variation at the base of the riser and the second causes an increase in pressure variation. Through testing, it was possible to identify necessary conditions for reproducibility of the slug. During control tests, it was decided to use the combination of water flow and gas that provides of longer length slugs, this is due to the fact that, in general, the slugs that occur in production plants are long lasting. 5 Control Tests For reasons of comparison, tests were performed initially with manual actuation of the choke valve. This method is commonly used in production plants. The flow parameters of the pump and gas injection were used in all the control tests were respectively: and liters/min. The valve actuation pattern used for manual Pressure (psi) 35 3 5 No Control Manual Control 5 15 5 3 35 5 5 Time(min) Figure 1: Pressure comparison with and without manual control. Figure 13 and 1 shows the average flow rate over a period of min for the cases with control and without control respectively. These results aims to observe whether there was a decrease of mean flow caused by the pressure drop resulting from choke valve actuation. 33

Belo Horizonte, MG, a pressure. de Setembro One de 1 can also observe that the control requires a few minutes to get in tune with the slug cycles from No Control which it becomes effective. Average Flow = 7. m 3 /h 1 11 9 No control Automatic control 7 1 1 1 1 Figure 13: Average flow without control. 5 5 15 5 3 35 5 5 Figure 15: Flow with and without automatic control. Area=11 dx=599. Manual control No Control Automatic control Average Flow =.9 m 3 /h Pressure (psi) 35 3 5 1 1 1 1 5 15 5 3 35 5 5 Figure 1: Average flow with manual control. The comparative results show that the activation of the valve causes a decrease of peak flow as shown in Fig. 11 and very few changes in pressure show in Fig. 1 and results in a slight reduction in the mean flow. 5. Automatic Control The automatic control uses the same conditions for all tests, as reported previously. The configuration chosen for the tests was the use of the bottom control. The process of automatic control is based on the use of two meshes, master (pressure) and slave (flow). This is possible by reading these previous parameters and the use of it in a feedback process. The following results in Fig. 15 show the comparison between flow with and without automatic control process. Figure 1 shows the same result for pressure. One can observe the effect of automatic control of flow peaks, it is clear that they are considerably decreased. The same occurs with the Figure 1: Pressure with and without automatic control. From the point of view of the average flow also in an interval of min, Fig. 17 shows the average flow without control process and Fig. 1 with automatic control process. It can be observed that there was an increase in average flow in comparison with no control process in contrary to what was observed in the manual control. Because of the process control, there was an increase in average flow of about %. 337

Area=11 dx=59.1 No control Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the financial support from PETROBRAS S.A. Average Flow = 7. m 3 /h 1 1 1 1 Figure 17: Average flow without control. Area=3 dx=599. Average Flow =. m 3 /h Automatic control 1 1 1 1 Figure 1: Average flow with control. Conclusions Tests performed in the experimental setup allowed to produces slugs with different flow characteristics, pressure, period and length. It was possible to perform three different comparisons: manual control vs. no control, automatic control vs. no control and automatic control vs. manual control. The tests showed that a manual control results in negligible decrease of pressure peaks, however slightly decreasing the average flow rate, or decreasing the production. The automated control was allowed to mitigate slug in addition to decreasing the pressure peaks up to 57%, decrease flow peaks up to 5% and an increase the average flow rate up to % in comparison with the results without any slug control. These results show that the control system developed in this project is able to tune into the slugs cycles and mitigate them. As future tasks will be necessary to perform further tests with different features of slug flow conditions and to test with the platform configuration in order to determine the benefits and limitations of the technique. References Boe, A. 191 Severe slugging characteristics, selected topics in two-phase flow, NTH, Trondheim, Norway. Taitel, Y. 19 Stability of severe slugging. Int. J. Multiphase Flow, 3-17. Taitel, Y., Vierkandt, S., Shoham, O. & Brill, J. P. 199 Severe slugging in a pipeline-riser system, experiments and modeling. Int. J. Multiphase Flow 1, 57-. Schmidt, Z., Doty, D. R. & Dutta-Roy, K. 195 Severe slugging in offshore pipeline riser-pipe systems. Soc. Petrol. Engs. J. 5, 7-3. Pots, B. F. M., Bromilow, I. G. & Konijn, M. J. W. F. 197 Severe slug flow in offshore flow-line/riser systems, SPE 1373. SPE Prod. Eng., 319-3. Jansen, F. E. & Shoham, O. 199. Methods for eliminating pipeline-riser flow instabilities, SPE 77, presented at SPE western regional meeting, Long Beach (March 3-5), 193-. Hill, T. J. 199 Riser-base gas injection into the S.E. Forties line. Proc. th Int. Conf. BHRA, pp. 133-1. Hill, T. J. 199 Gas injection at riser base solves slugging, flow problems. Oil & Gas J., -9. Schmidt, Z., Brill, J. P. & Beggs, H. D. 1979 Choking can eliminate severe pipeline slugging. Oil & Gas J. 1, 3-3. 33