05/05/2019

Koya University
Faculty of Engineering
Department of Petroleum Engineering
Fourth Stage

Well Testing Engineering

Surface Well Testing (SWT)

Farhad Abdulrahman
Assistant Lecturer

Surface Well Testing

• Accurate, efficient measurements for better
reservoir characterization.

• Surface well testing is the only technique available

today that assesses the true reservoir potential at
full scale under dynamic condition and static
standard condition.

• It validates well performance during clean-up and

commissioning and allows reservoir monitoring for
better field management.
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Well Test Separators

• Test separators are used on exploration,
appraisal, development and workover
wells where effluent phases are not
known, so they must treat a wide variety of
effluents, such as gas, gas condensate,
light oil, heavy oil, and foaming oil as well
as oil containing water and impurities such
as mud or solid particles.

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Components
• Flow Head
• Choke Manifold
• Emergency Shut-down valve
• Heater
• Separator Vessel (Complex Part)
• Data Acquisition Unit
• Surge Tank
• Pump
• Burner/Flare

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Selection of Separator Type

• Selection of Separator type is a function of the
following factors:

1. Gas Handling Requirements

2. Space Availability

• Horizontal Sep. are more efficient in handling large

amount of gas / larger interfacial area and it has better
phase separation, but it requires more space.
• Vertical Separators, have good solid handling, better
liquid surge capability and require less space

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CleanSep Well Test Separator

Horizontal separator with
SmartWeir technology that
can operate as a stand-
alone unit or with
PhaseTester portable
multiphase well testing
equipment.

Operations with severe

environment requirements
on water & H.C disposal.
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Conventional Horizontal Separator

• Instrumented vessel that
separates well effluent
into three phases for
onshore and offshore well
testing; can operate as a
stand-alone unit or with
PhaseTester portable
multiphase well testing
equipment.

• Operates for testing

Production Wells after
clean up.
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Well Testing Control Equipment

• Surface well testing control equipment are
essential to assuring your test operations are
reliable and accurate as well as responsive
when faced with an emergency.

• Flowhead
• Floor Choke Manifold
• Surface Safety Valve
• Well Test Emergency Shutdown System

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Flowhead
The flow head supports the
test string and provides a
mean of surface well control
when completing, testing, or
performing live well
intervention operations.

Two off-wing valves connect

to the kill and flow manifolds
to control the flow of the
wellbore fluids.

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Floor Choke Manifold

Set of manual valves
used to control flow rate
and reduce well
pressure before flow
enters processing
equipment.

– Fixed
– Adjustable

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Surface Safety Valve

Hydraulically actuated
fail-safe gate valve for
testing oil and gas wells;
used to quickly shut in a
well upstream of the
choke manifold in case of
overpressure, failure, a
leak in downstream
equipment, or any other
well emergency requiring
an immediate shut-in.

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Well Test Emergency Shutdown

System
• Multistation system that
permits closure during
testing operations in
response to an
emergency.

• Remotely and
simultaneously controls
the flowline valve on
the flowhead and
surface safety valve.

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Surface Sampling
• Surface sampling from the wellhead, separator, and
stock tank is performed during most surface well tests.
When separator recombination samples are the only
available representative samples, the accuracy of the
separator flow rate measurements and stability of
separation conditions are especially critical to the
accurate determination of reservoir phase behaviour
from the recombined fluids.
1. Wellhead Sampling Manifold
2. Single-Phase Sample Bottle
3. Conventional Sample Bottle
4. Gas Sample Bottles
5. Zero Pressure Oil and Water Containers

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Wellhead Sampling Manifold

• The wellhead sampling
manifold (WSM) is a mobile
sampling system designed for
a safe, efficient high-pressure
fluid sampling at wellhead
during well testing operations.

• The WSM holds six 15,000 psi

conventional sample bottles.

• The sampling line is rigged to

a single sample port at the
wellhead.

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Conventional Sample Bottle

• Conventional sample bottle (CSB) for diphastic
PVT sample transportation

• The conventional sample bottle (CSB) is a

HPHT-Rated sample cylinder used for the
transfer of samples from downhole reservoir fluid
samples or from the wellhead and well test
separator during production test operations.

• Oil or condensate samples transported and

stored in the CSB are depressurized to below
bubble point pressure to create a natural gas cap
for routine Laboratory PVT Analysis.

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Gas Sample Bottles

• Gas sample bottles for
separator and process-line
sample transportation and
storage,

• Gas Sample Bottles (GSBs)

are sample cylinders for the
transportation and storage of
separator and process-line
during production testing.

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Zero Pressure Oil and Water Containers

Collected samples for

produced water analysis,
refinery product assays,
production problem testing,
and pipeline optimization.

To complete any production

test sampling program, a
variety of quantities of zero-
pressure liquid samples is
collected for the analysis of
produced water, crude oil
and condensate.
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Choke Settings and Paramters

• The well is tested through Separator on
choke setting 32, 48, 64, 96 and 128/64'' and
start testing the well for least 12 hours per
each choke setting (It my change accordingly
and will be confirmed according to well
flowing behaviour and/or testing result).

• WHP, WHT, Qo, Qg, Qw, BSW, GOR, Gas

density, water density, oil density, CO2, H2S,
Ps, Ts.
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End

Next: Gas Well Testing

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