Practical and Successful Prevention of Annular Pressure Buildup on the Marlin Project

Vargo, Richard F.; Payne, M.L.; Faul, Ronnie; LeBlanc, John A.; Griffith, James

doi:10.2118/85113-pa

Cited by 37 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 9 publications

(6 reference statements)

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“…Some classical and recent studies are as follows. Vargo et al [16] analyzed the control law of the TAP by experiments. A water-based fluid and an oil-based fluid are selected to compare the mitigation performances by injecting the nitrogen gas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling analysis of the temperature profile and trapped annular pressure induced by thermal-expanded liquid in a deep gas well

Zhang¹,

Zheng²,

Deng³

et al. 2022

Front. Phys.

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The trapped annular pressure (TAP) caused by thermal expansion is one of the serious challenges for the safe production of a deep gas well. Therefore, this article proposes a model to calculate the temperature profile of the deep gas well based on the heat transfer process and the gas properties. With the help of the temperature model, the TAP in the tubing–casing annulus is analyzed according to the annular fluid distribution and the volume consistence law. The results indicate that the temperature inside the tubing string decreases faster under higher bottom hole pressure. When the tubing–casing annulus is totally filled with the annular protection liquid, the TAP continues increasing with the production rate. Considering the high production rate, the TAP is inevitable and high enough to damage the integrity of the deep gas well. The nitrogen gas mitigates the TAP by reducing the annular liquid volume and providing the extra space to accommodate the thermal-expanded annular liquid. A good mitigation performance can be achieved no matter how large the production rate is. The mitigation performance can be divided into the fast-decreasing stage, the efficient control stage, and the stable stage. These three stages occur as the nitrogen gas column length increases. The compression of the nitrogen gas volume plays a major role in the fast decrease stage while the reduction of the annular liquid plays a major role in the stable stage. For the best cost-effectiveness, the nitrogen gas column is recommended in the efficient control stage and should not exceed 15%.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling analysis of the temperature profile and trapped annular pressure induced by thermal-expanded liquid in a deep gas well

Zhang¹,

Zheng²,

Deng³

et al. 2022

Front. Phys.

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show abstract

“…To predict annular temperature accurately is essential to calculate APB and develop some mitigation approaches (Vargo et al, 2003, Hasan et al, 2010. Annular pressure buildup (APB) is a phenomenon occurred in the production process related to wellbore heat transfer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temperature Increase Behavior of Multi-Annuli in Subsea Wells

Liu

Fan

Liu

et al. 2016

Day 4 Fri, March 25, 2016

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Annular pressure buildup (APB), caused by fluid thermal expansion in confined annuli of high temperature (HT) subsea wells, can lead to some serious accidents such as casing failure or tubing collapse, especially during the starting production within hours. Thermal expansion in the sealed annulus contributes to more than 80% of APB. To predict annular temperature accurately is the key to calculate APB. This paper presents a semi-steady state model to predict multi-annular temperature. The new model presented not only taking the amount of annuli difference in various depths into account but also the friction energy effects of formation fluid flowing in the tubing. The simulation result describes the temperature distribution in various depths of different annulus. The simulation results show that the temperature increase in the multi-annuli can be as high as 30°C on an average.

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“…However, in some conditions, the induced temperature redistribution can impact the wellbore integrity and/or its intended functions. Wellbore failure can occur as a result of annular pressure buildup (APB), caused by heated annuli fluid thermal expansion (Ferreira et al 2012;Vargo et al 2003;Azzola et al 2007), and the hydrate formation because of produced hydrocarbon temperature loss resulting in flow assurance issues (Feeney 1999;Lively 2002). In such cases, temperature management is required to control the temperature changes at an acceptable level to protect the fluid in the tubing or to protect its outside surrounding components.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heat Transfer Modeling of Wellbore with Vacuum-Insulated-Tubing (VIT)

Kang

Samuel

Gonzales

et al. 2015

Day 1 Mon, November 23, 2015

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Wellbore heat transfer induces wellbore temperature redistribution and can impact wellbore integrity and the ability of the well to perform its required functions effectively as the design intended. Vacuuminsulated-tubing (VIT) is purposed to reduce wellbore tubing fluid heat loss to protect the tubing fluid or the outside components. Accurate prediction of the wellbore operating temperature during the design phase is essential especially for a VIT well because of its natural difference from the regular pipe.VIT pipe consists of a vacuum section and connector section. The vacuum section has a much better insulation effect than that of the connector, inducing ЉnonuniformЉ heat transfer. This generates significant annulus temperature spikes along the axial direction; up to 50°F in half VIT unit length, 20 ft in field observation ). Conventionally, axial temperature gradient is ignored with regular pipe because it is negligible compared with radial temperature gradient. This is no longer applicable for VIT because these temperature spikes enhance free convection significantly. This paper presents a novel wellbore heat transfer model to provide accurate temperature prediction for a VIT well.Operators use a higher averaged overall thermal conductivity values over VIT because it yields acceptable conservative incremental pressure in annular pressure buildup (APB) calculation, which matches their field observations. There is still uncertainty about modeling with different thermal conductivity values for the VIT vacuum section and connector in conventional commercial simulators that produce high-temperature spikes and relative unreasonable low incremental pressure. Field case study results with this new model show that compared with conventional simulator results the wellbore average temperature increases and the spikes amplitude in the temperature distribution decreases. In addition, whether the connection is insulated or non-insulated plays a critical role in the overall VIT performance. Good connection insulation will increase the overall insulation effect significantly.Literature surveys show few studies on modeling wellbore heat transfer with the enhanced free convection effect inherent to VIT. A conventional wellbore temperature simulator ignores this effect and underestimates the overall wellbore temperature. This paper provides a novel solution model for VIT wellbore temperature prediction, which will be integrated into a commercial advanced casing and tubing design software platform.

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Practical and Successful Prevention of Annular Pressure Buildup on the Marlin Project

Cited by 37 publications

References 9 publications

Modeling analysis of the temperature profile and trapped annular pressure induced by thermal-expanded liquid in a deep gas well

Modeling analysis of the temperature profile and trapped annular pressure induced by thermal-expanded liquid in a deep gas well

Temperature Increase Behavior of Multi-Annuli in Subsea Wells

Heat Transfer Modeling of Wellbore with Vacuum-Insulated-Tubing (VIT)

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