Slug-Control Strategy Proves Effective in New Angola Facility

This paper describes a novel control scheme developed and tested on simulation for both hydrodynamic slugging and severe riser-induced slugging for a new facility in Angola.

November 1, 2021

Journal of Petroleum Technology

Fig. 1—Riser slug-control scheme with pressure and level controllers downstream of the control valve (on the separator) cascaded to the pseudoflow controller. Note that the low signal selector determines the final setpoint of the pseudoflow controller.

Hydrodynamic slugging was anticipated during the design of a new facility in Angola. A simulation study demonstrated that a control scheme from the literature could be applied effectively to control the slugging. That solution was rejected, however, because of the use of a pseudovariable as the principal control point. A novel control scheme, therefore, was developed and tested in simulation for both hydrodynamic slugging and severe riser-induced slugging.

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