Today, the existing pipeline system for gathering oil and associated gas, transportation of gaslift gas and injection water in Vietsovpetro is not optimal due to insufficient loading of one areas and over-loading of others as the result of changes in production volumes in existing facilities and tie-in of new ones, performance of planned work-overs, failures and shut-down of pipelines, and etc. Construction of new pipelines may be economically inefficient or impossible due to technical limitations of the offshore oil production. At the end of the day, the oil and gas gathering system experiences an increase of pressure drop during transportation, resulting in negative wellhead pressures and leading to production decrease. Therefore, the adaptation of the existing pipeline system to the current demands is highly important in order to optimize oil and gas transportation so to ensure its safety, maintain planned production level or to increase it by lowering wellhead pressure.
Vietsovpetro JV has developed and implemented the methods to adopt the existing pipeline systems to the current requirements, including options of changing the pipeline purpose, type of dispensed hydrocarbon medium, directions of oil and gas flows, application of dual-purpose pipelines. The examples, contained in this article, prove that implementation of methods for adopting the existing oil and gas gathering pipelines under offshore production conditions allow optimizing oil transportation, decrease pressure losses and obtain production grow with minimal costs.
References
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