A Data Science Application for Validating Multiphase Measurement by Separator Data

Abstract

In the oil and gas industry, production from wells is characterized by a multiphase flow formed by oil, water, and gas. What is produced in each well is transported individually to the processing plant, where the components are separated for their final destinations. The advance of offshore production in increasingly extreme subsea conditions requires greater control and management of production for economic, fiscal, and operational safety reasons. One of the regulatory requirements is the need to measure appropriation, i.e., to allocate the production of each field, well, and reservoir periodically. Test separators are often used for this, as they can separate the fluids, making it possible to measure each phase individually using single-phase meters. However, test separators are heavy and bulky pieces of equipment, which are scarce resources on oil platforms. This has led to the need to use multiphase meters, which can replace test separators when testing producing wells with the aim of measuring for appropriation. The aim of the multiphase meter is to determine the flow of each component present in the flow individually, without the need for separation. Any multiphase flow meter requires testing, calibration, and adjustment, which can be carried out in different locations, such as the vendor's own factory, test facilities, or even in situ. These tests are of the utmost importance to ensure that the system performs all its functions satisfactorily. On the oil platform, it is very common to evaluate the performance of the multiphase meter by comparing it with measurements obtained by single-phase meters, which are considered to be more accurate and reliable, after separation by the test separator. To carry out this type of procedure, it is necessary to use tools based on data science, such as programming languages and statistical analysis, to improve the field performance of multiphase meters. In this study, a calibration factor was applied to the flow data obtained on an oil platform using multiphase flow meters and single-phase meters installed after the test separator vessel. For this purpose, flow measurement data from seven oil wells on different days was used, totaling 24 tests.