Estimation of minimum required gas liquid ratio (GLR) to support plunger lift installation in wells using a simple method

Field testing of various artificial lift methods to determine their applicability can be costly. To alleviate these costs, it is necessary to develop a simple method to predict plunger lift applicability in advance of the installation under particular well operational conditions. In this work a simple-to-use approach has been developed to provide an accurate way to determine the applicability of plunger lift for wells. This method examines the feasibility of plunger lift for different tubing size, as a function of operating pressure and the well depth. The method is useful to obtain the minimum produced gas liquid ratio (GLR) required to support plunger lift installation in a well. If the well's measured producing GLR is greater than or equal to that given by this method, then plunger lift will likely work for the well. If the measured GLR of the well is close to the value given by the method, the well may or may not be a candidate for plunger lift. The predictive tool developed in this study can be of immense practical value for petroleum engineers to have a quick check on the applicability of plunger lift at various wells without opting for any expensive field trials. In particular, petroleum and production engineers would find the proposed method to be user-friendly with transparent calculations involving no complex expressions.