Improving the Foamer Selection Procedure for Gas Well Deliquification Application

摘要

Liquid loading is a common problem in mature gas wells which due to low pressures in the reservoir, liquid phase cannot be lifted to the well head. In gas wells, foamer injection is one of the method to mitigate liquid loading and increase the stable gas production. In this study a modified version of the Bikerman gas sparging setup was designed to evaluate the foamers performance at conditions which are more representative to the ones in fields, such as higher pressures and temperatures. The effect of different parameters on foam performance is studied. The study covers the effect of pressure, temperature, hydrocarbon fraction and foamer agitation velocity on the foam performance. Three tests were performed to quantify the foamer performance; foam buildup, collapse and liquid carryover tests. It is shown that performing evaluation tests at temperatures and hydrocarbon fractions close to the field conditions is inevitable. These results could be used as a basis to improve the current foamer testing methods. The same procedure could be used for surfactants evaluation for Enhanced-oil recovery (EOR) application.