A method for preventing hydrates from blocking flow during deep-water gas well testing

Based on the research of the formation mechanism and evolution rule of hydrate flow obstacle during deep-water gas well testing,a new method for the prevention of hydrate flow obstacle based on safety testing window is proposed by changing the previous idea of"preventing formation"to the idea of"allowing formation,preventing plugging".The results show that the effective inner diameter of the testing tubing and the wellhead pressure decrease gradually with the formation and precipitation of hydrates during deep-water gas well testing,and it presents three typical processes of slow,fast and sudden changes.There is a safety testing window during deep-water gas well testing.The safety testing window of deep-water gas well testing decreases first and then increases with the increase of gas production rate,and increases with the increase of hydrate inhibitor concentrations.In the case with different testing production rates,a reasonable testing order with alternate low and high gas production rates has been proposed to further reduce the dosage of hydrate inhibitor and even avoid the use of hydrate inhibitors considering the decomposition and fall-off of hydrates.Compared with the traditional methods,the new method based on safety testing window can reduce the dosage of hydrate inhibitor by more than 50%.

Prediction of natural gas hydrate formation region in wellbore during deepwater gas well testing

Wellbore temperature field equations are established with considerations of the enthalpy changes of the natural gas during the deep-water gas well testing. A prediction method for the natural gas hydrate formation region during the deep-water gas well testing is proposed, which combines the wellbore temperature field equations, the phase equilibrium conditions of the natural gas hydrate formation and the calculation methods for the pressure field. Through the sensitivity analysis of the parameters that affect the hydrate formation region, it can be concluded that during the deep-water gas well testing, with the reduction of the gas production rate and the decrease of the geothermal gradient, along with the increase of the depth of water, the hydrate formation region in the wellbore enlarges, the hydrate formation regions differ with different component contents of natural gases, as compared with the pure methane gas, with the increase of ethane and propane, the hydrate formation region expands, the admixture of inhibitors, the type and the concentrations of which can be optimized through the method proposed in the paper, will reduce the hydrate formation region, the throttling effect will lead to the abrupt changes of temperature and pressure, which results in a variation of the hydrate formation region, if the throttling occurs in the shallow part of the wellbore, the temperature will drop too much, which enlarges the hydrate formation region, otherwise, if the throttling occurs in the deep part of the wellbore, the hydrate formation region will be reduced due to the decrease of the pressure.