Automated Production Surveillance and
Optimization System for Gas-Lifted Wells
Gustavo Ariel Marin
Mauricio Cadena
Jose Vargas
Hector Abarzua
Francisco Villanueva
Abstract
Today the use of smart monitoring, surveillance and diagnostics systems for different parameters
of production has a crucial importance to reduce the decision making process and accelerate the
actions for production optimization.
This presentation will introduce an Automated Production Optimization Solution designed to
identify problems with well performance and operating conditions and optimize the production
system.
The solution includes the access and management of a high volume of data from different
sources that contain low and high frequency data (daily, sporadic and sensors data) with the
capability of automatic data conditioning and validation processes.
Throughout the connectivity of different applications and the integration of different tasks and
routines is possible to automate the calculation of well production rates using well models
automatically updated with operational data and optimize the gas lift system according with the
variation of the operational conditions analyzed using a self-organizing-map engine.
These results are loaded in additional workflows for chemical injection calculation (emulsion,
scale inhibitors) and erosive velocities at manifolds, chokes and gas lift valves.
A simplified and user friendly interface is available to run simulations with different scenarios for
flowrate estimation and Gas Lift Optimization.
The solution delivers surveillance reports via web with validated alerts and e-mail notification. The
surveillance methods include threshold, time-based variance and model well variance.
The report also shows plots and tables with the evolution of the different parameters for wells,
test facilities and platforms, key performance indicators, Gas Lift performance and Production
Optimization report.
As conclusion, Automated Production Surveillance and Optimization Systems facilitate and
accelerate production enhancement recommendations to close the gap between current and
potential production.