Simplified Wellbore Flow Modeling in Gas-Condensate Systems

Predicting long-term reservoir performance with realistic wellbore models is fraught with uncertainty because of the complexity of two-phase flow. Even a calibrated two-phase-flow model departs from its expected performance trend when changes in flow conditions occur. The full-length paper explores the possibility of using simplified approaches to computing bottomhole pressure (BHP) from wellhead pressure (WHP), measured rates, gravity of producing fluids, and tubular dimensions. Statistical results from BHP computations on three independent data sets comprising 167 gas/condensate-well tests show that the homogeneous model compares quite favorably with mechanistic two-phase-flow models.