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Abstract
Liquid condensation in natural gas transmission pipelines commonly occurs due to the thermodynamic and hydrodynamic
imperatives. Condensation subjects the gas pipeline to two phase transport, which dramatically affects their delivery ability and
operational modality and the associated peripheral facilities. It is therefore imperative for the pigging simulation in gascondensate flowlines to be taken into consideration in their design. Periodic pigging helps keep the pipeline free of liquid,
reducing the overall pressure drop, and thereby increasing the pipeline flow efficiency. A new simplified pigging model has
been developed for predicting the pigging operation in gas-condensate horizontal pipelines with low liquid-loading, which
couples the phase behavior model with the hydro-thermodynamic model. The comparison of the calculating results with those
of the two-phase transient computational code OLGA (with a dynamic, one-dimensional, extended two-fluid model), indicates
the new pigging model has a good precision and high speed in calculation. The model also contains the capability of pigtracking and slug-length-increasing model, which can be suitable for engineering design.
D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Natural gas-condensate; Pigging simulation; Low-liquid loading; Compositional hydrodynamic model; Phase behavior model; Twophase flow; Pipeline
1. Introduction
With the rapid development of offshore and desert
gas/condensate field, pre-treatment of natural gas at
the wellhead to remove the heavies is not generally an
option because of the hostile environment. The pro* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 8973 3557; fax: +86 10
8973 3804.
E-mail address: xiaoxuanxu@sohu.com (X.-X. Xu).
0920-4105/$ - see front matter D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.petrol.2005.06.005
X.-X. Xu, J. Gong / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 48 (2005) 272280
273
274
X.-X. Xu, J. Gong / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 48 (2005) 272280
(a)
Ao
Bo
(b)
Vp
Vs ELs
pig
A
Vt
VL EL
3. Pigging simulation
3.1. Compositional hydrodynamic model
Prediction of temperature and mass transfer is extremely important for multicomponent or compositional flow,
such as gas condensate systems. Compositions of such
complex systems are not constant, but vary significantly
along the pipeline as a function of pressure, and especially
temperature. Thus, the black oil model is inadequate to
handle compositional systems, which should be treated
by vaporliquid equilibrium flash calculation at each
pressure and temperature. Accurate prediction of both
pressure and temperature is thus essential.
This paper presents a compositional hydrodynamic
model that describes the hydrodynamic behavior of
gas/gas condensate flow in pipelines, in which gas is
condensing/vaporizing at some section of the pipeline.
One of the most difficult features of this system is that
the condensing/vaporizing section must be identified.
This problem is resolved by coupling of a phase-behavior model to the basic hydrodynamic equations.
The phase behavior model incorporates the Peng
Robinson two-parameter EOS (Peng and Robinson,
dx Total
dx
dx Elevation
Friction
dP
1
dx acceleration
3.1.2. Energy equation
As fluids flow through a pipe, they continuously
exchange heat with the surroundings. The temperature
profile in flowing fluids is affected by heat transfer,
L
PK-1
T K-1
HK-1
PK
TK
HK
Z
X.-X. Xu, J. Gong / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 48 (2005) 272280
dx Total
dx Exchange
dx Elevation
dH
2
dx Kinetic
For quasi-steady-state flow,
dH
dQ
dv
dZ
v
g
:
dx
dx
dx
dx
Bx
Bt
B qg v g2 P
B qg vg
f qg vg jvg j
qg gsinh:
Bx
Bt
2D
6
The local friction factor f is calculated by an empirical correlation. The pressure and the gas density
are related by gas EOS,
P
zRT
qg
Mg
x PK
LSK+1
VPK+1
Pig
VFK
VFK+1
Pig
LSK
275
x FK
276
X.-X. Xu, J. Gong / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 48 (2005) 272280
Table 1
The pipeline operating data
Parameters
Value
Length
Diameter
Wall thickness
Pipe material
Wall roughness
Surrounding temperature
Total thermal conductivity
Flow rate at input
Temperature at input
Pressure at input
199 km
A559
11.9
API 5L X65
0.02 mm
276 K
1.5 W/(m2 K)
27.4 m3/s
293 K
9.219 MPa
qdV
V t
Y
qvY w
ddA 0:
At
vt
ELs vp EL vL
ELs EL
10
dLs
qL vL vL vt EL A:
dt
14
12
1 vs =8:661:39
qL vs ELs A
dLs
ELs
vL vt EL 0:
dt
11
xP
15
where, s s is the shear stress between the slug and the
pipe wall. For one horizontal pipeline, substituting
Table 2
The gas-condensate composition
Component
C1
C2
C3
iC4
nC4
iC5
nC5
C6
C7+
CO2
N2
Total
mol %
88.73
7.1
1.31
0.29
0.34
0.17
0.10
0.22
0.14
0.09
1.51
100.0
X.-X. Xu, J. Gong / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 48 (2005) 272280
277
4. Numerical solution
The time step Dt is assumed as constant, Dt = const.
In each timestep, the change of the slug length Dx can
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X.-X. Xu, J. Gong / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 48 (2005) 272280
Table 3
Results calculated comparing with those of OLGA
OLGA
MODLE
Liquid
accumulated
(m3)
Maximum
pressure
(MPa)
Liquid
pigged
(m3)
Slug delivery
time (min)
102.8
94.2
9.19
9.19
73.8
73.9
11.6
10.8
5. Pigging analysis
One horizontal gas-condensate pipeline in Tarim
gas field in western China is used to test the proposed
pigging model. It represents a typical gas-condensate
pipeline, and fluid composition and pipeline data are
given in Tables 1 and 2. And the phase envelope is
shown in Fig. 4.
Since there is no pigging data of gas-condensate
pipelines in practice, the famous transient flow simulation software OLGA is used to test against the
proposed model. With higher precision, OLGA, a
dynamic, one-dimensional, extended two-fluid
6. Conclusion
X.-X. Xu, J. Gong / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 48 (2005) 272280
s
p
F
279
Liquid slug
Pig
Slug front
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Xinjiang Tarim Oil Field
Company for providing support for this project.
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