Choke-management strategies vary significantly among operators. No rigorous methodology exists for properly selecting choke sizes when constraints are placed on completions, wellbores, and fluid pressures and velocities. In this paper, the authors propose a coupled wellbore/reservoir model that performs dynamic nodal analysis using integrated models for surface-facilities, wellbore, and reservoir simulators and allows an operator to select choke sizes as a function of time.
Introduction
The suggested algorithm consists of three primary entities: the reservoir, the wellbore, and the completion. A reservoir simulator provides the rate as a function of drawdown or bottomhole pressure (BHP), and a wellbore model is used to calculate the frictional pressure loss along the wellbore and the surface flowlines.
