Gas lift accelerator tool
AssigneeOil & Gas Tech Enterprises C.V.
InventorsScott Vander Velde, Helimenas Dominguez, Abdon Aranguren
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The gas lift accelerator is a method and a downhole apparatus based on the principle of the jet pump to allow the extraction of reservoir fluids up to high API grade with low or no reservoir pressure, at any depth, by injecting available gas in the oil field, allowing the flexibility of operation on diverse well completion configurations like sliding sleeve type and gas lift mandrels, complementing the operating when other methods like traditional gas lift procedures or hydraulic fluid jet pumps are not effective. The gas lift method includes the use of downhole and surface metering data to optimize the operation of the gas lift accelerator apparatus.
Claims28
A downhole gas lift accelerator apparatus for oil extraction in a well comprising
- a jet pump module including a tubular mandrel housing which contains an internal Venturi throat and a Venturi diffuser and a Venturi nozzle, connecting a bottom side low pressure well fluid with an upper side energized mixture on the inside of a production conduit,
- an inlet conduit connecting an annular space between an outside surface of the mandrel housing and a well case with the internal Venturi throat, to provide flow of a pressurized gas injected from a surface device through the annular space between the well case and an annular production tube, such gas being accelerated as it passes through the inlet conduit and the Venturi nozzle into the Venturi throat, thereby forming a pressure drop that produces a low pressure, high density well fluid located at the bottom of the jet pump to flow towards the Venturi throat such that an accelerated gas mixes with the well fluid to form the energized mixture at the Venturi diffuser,
- a back flow restraint element that can move between a closed or an open position at an inlet gas pressure threshold,
- at least one exchangeable interface element which attaches the jet pump module to the production tube and seals the passage for fluids between an apparatus inner side and an outer side, being located at the upper side of the jet pump module or at the lower side of the jet pump module or in both sides of the jet pump module relative to the production of the well.
A method for extracting oil in a well by injecting gas from a surface device into a down hole gas lift accelerator apparatus comprising a jet pump module, an inlet conduit with a back flow restraint with a spring type element, a lower module with pressure and temperature sensor, a surface data processing equipment and supplementary oil operation device including a surface gas pressure station and a well service running tool, the method comprising the steps,
- setting the downhole gas lift accelerator apparatus to one or more well conditions before delivery into a well bore;
- verifying location of a downhole packer at a specified production depths;
- lowering the downhole gas lift accelerator apparatus into the well down to the operating depth with the well service running tool and device;
- locking the downhole gas lift accelerator apparatus to the production tubing or an element installed previously to the completed production tubing at the operating depth;
- injecting the high pressure gas from the surface gas pumping station through the annular between the casing and the production conduit until reaching the operational pressure level over the opening of the back flow restrain element;
- processing the data acquired from the well fluids with the downhole sensors and measurements on surface recovered mixture;
- pumping the well fluids up to the surface;
- and
- evaluating system performance and adjusting the gas pressure and flow.
A method to control the distribution of a gas into one or more oil producing wells with a gas lift accelerator apparatus comprising a jet pump module, an inlet conduit with a back flow restraint, a lower module with a pressure sensor and a temperature sensor, a data processing device and a surface gas pressure station, the method comprising the steps of:
- evaluating well conditions to determine a gas pressure and flow rate for the one or more oil producing wells;
- injecting pressurized gas at a preliminary pressure and flow level;
- measuring pressure and temperature data in at least one well;
- processing the data;
- performing computational analysis of the processed data;
- and
- correcting parameters of the gas pressure and flow rate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.