2017 4th International Conference on Engineering Technology and Application (ICETA 2017)

ISBN: 978-1-60595-527-8

Study on the Wellhead Sampling Method for SAGD of Heavy Oil

Yongwei Guo* & Zhiping Li
China University of Geosciences Energy Institute, Beijing, China

Yugang Lv
Jinzhong Vocational and Technical College, Jinzhong, Shanxi, China

ABSTRACT: Aiming at the existing problems of the SAGD sampling method, based on the sampling SAGD
production liquid requirements, through the analysis of advantages and disadvantages of extraction pipeline sam-
pler and DC cooling type sampler, the bypass pipeline sampler is finally designed which meets the requirements
of SAGD sampling. The sampler is suitable for the water content of SAGD sampling, and provides some guid-
ance for the development of SAGD matching technology.

Keywords: SAGD; sampling; moisture content

1 INTRODUCTION conventional wellhead high temperature sampler has

For the development of oil field, it is a very important
routine work to collect samples of flowing medium in
pipeline, analyze the samples of a certain quantity of
medium in the pipeline, and determine its composi-
tion, water and sediment content, density and viscosi-
ty. However, because of the special production pro-
cess of ultra-heavy oil field, a large number of super-
heated steam is being injected into the underground oil
output liquid temperature at 160°C - 180°C, mean-
while in order not to make the water flash vaporization
in produced fluid, the pipeline pressure must be main-
tained at the saturation water vapor pressure above,
which increased the difficulty of sampling.
the following problems:
1) When using the wellhead high temperature sam-
pler, the fluid in the pipeline enters the normal tem-
perature and pressure environment at high temperature
and high pressure environment, resulting in the gasi-
fication of high temperature production liquid because
of the rapid change of environmental pressure, which
does not make the sample representative.
2) Severe vaporization not only leads to the failure
to get samples during the sampling process, but also a
potential safety hazard in the whole sampling process
because there is a lot of high temperature steam during
the sampling process.

3 METHODS OF CURRENT HEAVY OIL

2 PROBLEMS EXISTING IN HEAVY OIL SAM-
PLING
Due to the special production process, high tempera-
ture and high pressure conditions of heavy oil field,
which adds much difficulty for sampling, especially in
SAGD mining process, a large number of superheated
steam is being injected into the underground oil output
liquid temperature at 160°C ~ 180°C, wellhead pres-
sure 1.5MPa ~ 2.0MPa, resulting in SAGD well using
*Corresponding author: 619669564@qq.com
SAMPLING
At present, the manual pipeline sampling method used
in ordinary heavy oil fields is only suitable for uni-
form liquid, and its composition and quality do not
change obviously with time. The automatic sampler is
common from the line of continuous or repeated ex-
traction of multiple sample, thus to ensure that any
changes in the composition of the bulk liquid can be
represented by the sample. In order to make the sam-
ple as representative as possible, it must meet the re-
quirement of uniform sampling point of liquid extrac-
tion and sample frequency. But at present the working

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temperature of automatic sampler is below 100°C, easily causes the extraction of residual; it’s inconven-
which does not meet the requirements. ient to keep warm.

3.1 Well opening sampler

3.1.1 Wellhead common sampler

In the early stage of construction of SAGD test area,
the wellhead common sampler is used. The working
principle is to open the sampling gate counterclock-
wise and connect the sample cup under the sampling
Figure 1. Manual oil well sampler.
opening, and close the sampling gate after the sam-
pling is completed.
The outflow of the high temperature production liq- 3.2.2 QYQ-35 automatic high temperature sampler
uid will result in flash vaporization because of pres- The QYQ-35 high temperature sampler is installed on
sure relief, which will affect whether the sample can some SAGD manifold oil-gathering lines(see figure
represent the real produced liquid. The high tempera- 2). When sampling began, close the lofting valve,
ture and pressure of the produced liquid with a large open the sampling valve, and move the piston cylinder
amount of steam bring some risks to the personal to suck the crude oil to the cylinder. When the col-
safety of employees. lected sample reaches a certain amount, close the
sampling valve, open the lofting valve, then start the
3.1.2 Pressure gauge vent cock natural air cooling system to cool the cylinder to be-
When the wellhead sampler becomes abnormal (fro- low 100°C, monitor the cylinder pressure gauge, ad-
zen in winter, rust or sampling cock release), using the just the position of the piston in the cylinder to make
pressure gauge vent cock or single well oil line pres- the pressure value close to the atmospheric pressure,
sure gauge pressure gauge vent cock head on wellhead and then open the lofting valve and discharge the oil
sampling. In the process of sampling, the sample cup sample.
is spliced below the sample opening. Then anticlock-
wise open the vent cock of pressure gauge which is
closed, after the sampling finishes.
Pressure gauge vent cock sampling and wellhead
common sampler have the same shortcomings, namely
the outflow of high temperature production liquid will
cause flash because of pressure relief, which can affect
whether the sample can represent the real produced
liquid. The high temperature and high pressure of the
produced liquid with a large amount of steam bring
some risks to the personal safety of the employees.

3.2 Pipeline suction sampler

3.2.1 Manual high temperature sampler

In the early stage of the construction of SAGD, a
manual handwheel sampler was installed on the single
well production line (see Figure 1). The principle is to
open the sampling gate when sampling, anticlockwise
rotate the handwheel to move the piston backward,
Figure 2. The high temperature structure and working princi-
and then the produced liquid enters into the cylinder
ple of QYQ-35 high temperature and high pressure sampler.
barrel. When the temperature drops down to 80 de-
grees, open the sampling gate, and clockwise rotate
the handwheel to extrude the liquid into the cup. The problems of QYQ-35 high temperature auto-
Manual high temperature sampler is placed at the matic sampler are that the automation control system
horizontal, and the sampling opening is located in the is prone to malfunction, for example, the piston stroke
middle of the horizontal flowing pipeline. The fol- is often out of control, and the control of inlet and
lowing problems are found after use: because take outlet gates is disordered; the adaptability of the envi-
samples in the horizontal flowing pipeline, of which ronment temperature is poor, and too high or too low
the medium distribution is very heterogeneous, the temperature will lead to a failure in sampling.
representativeness is poor; small diameter pipeline Based on the operating situation at worksite, the
that accompanies sampling system is longer, which sampling quantity of the pipeline suction sampler is

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small and the sampling accuracy is not high. The main
reasons are as follows:
1) When the piston is moved back on the cylinder,
the negative pressure occurs within the cylinder, and
the cylinder pressure is lower than the pressure in
pipe, which results in flashing within the cylinder.
Because the piston makes the volume of cylinder con-
stant, which results in that most volume of cylinder is
occupied by gas, the sampling amount is reduced and
sometimes even no sample is available.
2) Because the sampling opening is directly con-
nected to the pipeline, and the flow pattern of the liq-
uid inside the pipeline cannot be determined, which
may result in the stratified flow state of fluid, the liq-
uid on the cross section of the pipeline cannot be taken
out uniformly, which affects the sampling accuracy.
4 BYPASS PIPELINE SAMPLER
Because the suction sampler exists above, we con-
clude that when sampling must meet 4 conditions: the
interception of a representative sample; into sampler
without phase mixer will be fully mixed sample; the
sample needs into the first cooling after the decom-
pression process, ensure the flash phenomenon does
not occur the sample; the sampler should be a heat
exchange device is arranged, the samples were cooled.
To this end, we develop pipeline bypass type sampler
according to the main points.
The design pressure is 1.6MPa, the working pres-
sure is 1 MPa, the design temperature is 200 degrees,
and the medium is the high temperature production
liquid of heavy oil. The basic principle is: firstly,
move the piston of suction unit to the end of oil
chamber, so as to make room for storage; open the
bypass flow and close the main process, so that the oil
chamber of suction unit is filled with the liquid in
pipeline; reverse operation flow to intercept all mate-
rial flowing through the oil chamber, and start the
cooler to cool the liquid in; when the temperature
cools below 100°C, which does not reach the boiling
point of the water vapor under atmospheric pressure,
the pressure suddenly decreases, which can prevent
the samples flashing, and through pushing the piston
of suction unit, the liquid can be completely removed,
which is the real sample of the original liquid pro-
duced from oil well.
Figure 3. Structure of pipe bypass sampler.
157
As shown in Figure 3, the system consists of DN50
pipeline, DN100 pipeline, DN50 ball valve, DN100
ball valve, mixer, sampling assembly, and cooling
system.
Its working process is to make the liquid flow to a
specific pipe section through the reverse process, then
intercept the whole material of the pipe flow section to
sample, and then cool the sampling system by wa-
ter-cooling.
When sampling is required, open the gate of the
bypass sampler, and close the straightway gate, so that
the liquid mixed evenly by the phase mixer flows to
the sampling cylinder of the sampling assembly along
the bypass pipeline, then flows out from the sampling
cylinder and enters into the system through the out-
flowing bypass pipeline. When the temperature of
sampling cylinder is the same with that of the pro-
duced liquid three minutes later, turn off the gate,
open the straightway gate, start the water circulating
cooling system to cool the sampling cylinder. When
the temperature of sampling cylinder cools to below
80°C three minutes later, close the cooling system,
place the sampling cup under the sampling opening,
open the sampling cock, and rotate the handwheel, to
make the sample liquid in cylinder flow into the cup.
5 FIELD APPLICATION
In July 2011, the bypass pipeline sampler was in-
stalled at 1 pipe sinks in the heavy 37SAGD test are,
as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4. The installation drawings of bypass pipe samplers.
5.1 Comparison between bypass pipeline sampler
and QYQ-35 sampler
In order to verify the technological adaptability of the
bypass pipeline sampler, a bypass pipeline sampler is
installed on the measuring pipeline in SAGD test site,
take 5 samples from the same test well in September
28, 29 and 30 in succession, and begin to take 1 sam-
ple from each well every day from October 1. Mean-
while, the QYQ-35 high temperature sampler contin-
ues to maintain the original sampling system, which is
to take 2 samples from each well per day. When two
samplers are used to take sample from the same well,
only the second sample instead of the first one is used
every time (See Table 1).
 Table 1. The comparison of bypass pipeline sampler and QYQ-35 sampler.
Date Moisture content (%)
Sampling methods
Well 9.3 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6
Bypass pipeline sampler 94 80 78 75 80 80 77 86 83 74 64
Well-1
Manual high temperature sampler 80 78 75 71 89 77 77
Bypass pipeline sampler 87 89 87 79 84 91 87 73 81 73 72
Well-2
Manual high temperature sampler 75 79 73 83 82 70 71
Bypass pipeline sampler 81 88 81 81 78 89 62 79 75 81 73
Well-3
Manual high temperature sampler 83 79 75 74 86 83 78
Bypass pipeline sampler 85 81 79 87 88 87 86 81 68 80 83
Well-4
Manual high temperature sampler 80 84 83 85 75 81 65

Table 2. by-pass pipeline sampler and wellhead sampler water data comparison table.
Date Moisture content (%)
Sampling methods
Well 11/6 11/9 11/10 11/11 11/13 11/14 11/15 11/16 11/22 Ave
Bypass pipeline sampler 73.1 81.3 82.4 79.3 65.8 80 77.6 72.5 74.6 75.7
Well-1
Wellhead common sampler 77.8 72.6 76.2 80.5 76.5 66.8 77 80.7 71.7 74.7
Bypass pipeline sampler 75.7 79.8 86.1 81.9 77.2 84.1 78.6 80.1 86 80.3
Well-2
Wellhead common sampler 75.5 79.9 73.5 84.1 83 82.2 83.6 79.6 86.4 79.8
Bypass pipeline sampler 79 87.5 89.4 83.2 83.2 77.3 78.7 80.9 80.9 79.5
Well-3
Wellhead common sampler 78.1 77.5 68.7 80.6 77.3 75 78.1 74.6 69.6 74.2

5.2 Comparison between bypass pipeline sampler
and common sampler
The oil production station decided to install the bypass
pipeline sampler in No. 2 measuring pipeline of man-
ifold in a SAGD test site in November, 2011, to real-
ize the accurate sampling of 4 wells of manifold.
In order to study the influence of flash on the mois-
ture content when the common wellhead sampler is
used, a two-week comparison test between the ordi-
nary sampler and bypass pipeline sampler are carried
out.
From the Table 2, it can be seen that the moisture
content of samples taken by two samplers from Well-1
and Well-2 isn’t much different, and the moisture
content of samples taken by wellhead sampler is about
1% lower than by bypass pipeline sampler. The meas-
ured moisture content of sample taken nu two sam-
plers from Well-3 are very different, and the moisture
content of sample taken by wellhead sampler is 5%
lower than by bypass pipeline sampler.
The study found that during comparing the moisture
content of two samples, the wellhead output liquid of
Well-1 and Well-2 has about 7 degrees Sub-coll, so
the output liquid exists in liquid form before flowing
into the wellhead sampler, which flashed slightly
when flowing out of sampler to a place under atmos-
pheric pressure, so that its measured moisture content
should be slightly lower than that of sample taken by
bypass pipeline sampler. Meanwhile, the wellhead
output liquid of Well-3 was in saturation state, that is,
a certain mass percentage of steam existed, of which
the presence is not acceptable for the wellhead sam-
pler. All components in the pipe can be intercepted by
bypass pipeline sampler, so the measured moisture
content of sample taken by wellhead sampler is about
5% lower than by bypass pipeline sampler.
The field experiments showed that this sampler can
directly extract the liquid from the pipeline constantly,
which can completely reflect the moisture content of
heavy oil in the pipeline.
6 CONCLUSION
(1) This sampler combines the principles of bypass
pipeline sampler and suction sampler, and changes the
operating process of suction unit to achieve the pur-
pose of sampling. (2) The interception pipeline sam-
pler takes the liquid in a certain pipeline section,
which is the whole sample in the certain pipeline, and
ensures the integrity of sample components. (3) Low-
ering the temperature before decompression can effec-
tively reduce the flash, and the sampling method can
satisfy the condition of accurate sampling, which can
avoid all kinds of sampling errors, and take sample
repeatedly and accurately.
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