Gas Lift Optimization Using Proxy
Functions in Reservoir Simulation
Q. Lu and G.C. Fleming, Halliburton, SPE
Summary
Artificial lift by means of gas injection into production wells or
risers is frequently used to increase hydrocarbon production, espe-
cially when reservoir pressure declines. We propose an efficient
optimization scheme that finds the optimal distribution of the
available gas lift gas to maximize an objective function subject to
surface-pipeline-network rate and pressure constraints. This pro-
cedure is a nonlinearly constrained optimization problem solved
by the generalized reduced-gradient (GRG) method. The values
of objective function, constraint functions, and derivatives needed
for optimization can be evaluated through two methods. The first
method repeatedly solves the full-network equations using Newton
iteration, which takes into account the flow interactions among
wells; however, this method can be computationally expensive. The
second and more efficient method is a new approach proposed in
this paper. It constructs a set of proxy functions that approximates
the objective function and constraints as functions of gas lift rates.
The proxy functions are obtained by solving part of the network
that consists of a gas lifted well or riser, assuming a stable pres-
sure at the terminal node where the partial network is decoupled
from the rest of the network, and are used to inexpensively evalu-
ate the objective function, constraints, and necessary derivatives
for the optimizer. A procedure to predict the proxy functions on
the basis of previous values can be used to reduce the number
of partial-network solves, and the partial-network solution has
been parallelized for faster simulation. These two methods can be
applied at different timesteps during the course of the simulation.
The proposed methods are implemented within a general-purpose
black-oil and compositional reservoir simulator and have been
applied to real-field cases.
Introduction
Continuous gas lift injection to production wells or risers is
an important method to maintain and improve hydrocarbon
production. The availability of lift gas is limited because it is
typically provided by produced gas; the gas lift operation is
also constrained by the resources of surface facilities, such as
the compression and separation capacities. Therefore, one goal
of well management is to optimally allocate available lift gas
to targeted wells or risers to maximize hydrocarbon production
under various facility constraints. Furthermore, as the market
price of gas continues to increase and produced-water treatment
becomes more expensive as a result of stricter environment
regulations, it is desirable to maximize the overall profit rather
than just production.
The gas lift optimization schemes described in the literature can
be categorized into two types. The first type is based on single-
well analysis; all wells on gas lift are isolated from each other,
assuming a fixed wellhead or gathering-center pressure. In many
cases, this assumption is valid because wells are normally choked
at the wellhead to maintain a stable wellhead pressure, or multiple
wells are gathered at a separator under a pressure control, or the
pressure drop across the well tubing is dominant in the pipeline
network. A performance curve (oil- or liquid-production rate vs.
gas lift rate or total gas rate) for each well can be constructed, and
Copyright © 2012 Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper (SPE 140935) was accepted for presentation at the SPE Reservoir Simulation
Symposium, The Woodlands, Texas, USA, 21–23 February 2011, and revised for
publication. Original manuscript received 24 March 2011. Revised manuscript received 9
August 2011. Paper peer approved 17 August 2011.
February 2012 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
the optimal gas lift rate allocation can be found using some form of
optimization. Kanu et al. (1981) proposed an equal-slope method.
The gas lift was allocated to wells through a manual procedure at
an average slope of the performance curves. This procedure did
not take into account the surface-facility constraints except for the
limit of total gas lift rate. Fang and Lo (1996) proposed a linear
programming method to optimally allocate gas lift under various
flow-rate constraints; the weighting factors used to interpolate the
objective function and constraint functions were taken as deci-
sion variables. Stoisits et al. (1999) developed neural-network
models to replace the well and surface pipeline hydraulics simu-
lation to reduce computation time, and genetic algorithms were
implemented to solve the optimization problems on the basis of
individual-well performances.
The second type is based on well solutions coupled through a
surface pipeline network. This method is more rigorous when flow
interactions among wells are strong. Dutta-Roy and Kattapuram
(1997) pointed out that flow interactions among wells could be
significant when the backpressure in the flowline shared by the
wells was relatively large. Therefore, a constrained nonlinear opti-
mization problem based on full-network solutions was formulated
and was solved using successive-quadratic-programming (SQP)
method. Hepguler et al. (1997) coupled a reservoir simulator and
a surface network simulator by iteratively solving the two simula-
tors until the boundary values between them were converged. An
SQP optimizer was applied for production optimization in the
surface network simulator. Wang and Litvak (2008) presented an
optimization strategy that iteratively adjusted gas lift allocation
and solved the full network until a minimum lift efficiency was
achieved at all wells. They developed a linear programming model
to scale the gas lift and production rates to satisfy network flow-
rate constraints. In general, the computational cost of the second
type is significantly higher than that of the first type because a
large number of full-network solutions may be needed for opti-
mization calculations.
We propose an efficient gas lift optimization scheme that com-
bines the two methods under the same optimization algorithm.
A constrained optimization problem is defined, and an objective
function is maximized using a highly efficient derivative-based
GRG optimizer (Lasdon and Waren 1997, Fletcher 1987). The
gas lift rates are specified as the decision variables. The opti-
mizer requires the values of the objective function, the constraint
functions, and the first-order derivatives of the functions with
respect to the decision variables. The values of the functions and
derivatives can be evaluated by two methods. The first method is
based on the full-network solution; the network is solved using
Newton iteration every time the function or derivative evaluations
are needed by the optimizer. This method can be very expensive,
especially if the derivatives are numerically evaluated because
the optimizer may need tens (or more) of function and derivative
evaluations before the optimal point is found. The second method
constructs a set of proxy functions that are similar to performance
curves; the proxy functions estimate the objective and constraint
functions as functions of gas lift rates. In this method, each gas
lifted well or riser (which includes all wells flowing to the riser)
is decoupled from the rest of the network at the first gathering
node so that a partial network is formed. A stable pressure at the
decoupling node (terminal node of a partial network) is assumed;
in other words, the interaction between wells is ignored. Proxy
functions of each gas lifted well or riser are obtained by solving
the partial network over a specific range of gas lift rates. They are
109
used to inexpensively evaluate the objective function, constraints,
and necessary derivatives for the optimization calculations. The
number of sample points (approximately 10) of gas lift rates for
proxy-function construction is normally much smaller than the
number of function or derivative evaluations needed by the opti-
mizer, and the partial-network solve is much less costly than the
full network solve. Therefore, the method using proxy functions
is much faster than the method using full-network solutions. We
solve the partial networks in the same way that we solve the full
network, using Newton iterations, as explained in the Network
Computations section.
We may change the solution methods during the course of the
simulation. For instance, when gas lift first starts, optimization
based on the full-network solution can be used because the interac-
tions between wells may be strong. Once the wellhead pressures
become stable, the method based on proxy functions can be applied
for faster simulation.
Notably, Rashid (2010) and Rashid et al. (2011) proposed a
procedure for gas lift optimization using gas lift performance
curves at given wellhead pressures for each gas lifted well and
performed optimization as a separable problem. The wellhead
pressure is then updated by a call to the underlying network
simulator to account for well interaction, and the optimization
problem is solved again [a related paper is Gutierrez et al. (2007)],
where the network simulator is coupled with the reservoir model
described by look-up tables. This approach is similar to the proxy-
function method proposed in this paper. However, there are some
key differences between the two methods. First, in addition to
constructing a proxy function of the objective function (the per-
formance curve), we also construct proxy functions of some of
the network constraints, which will be used to estimate the opti-
mization constraints. Second, the performance curve in Rashid’s
method is constructed by solving the gas lifted well using single-
well nodal analysis, while in our approach we solve the partial-
network equations using Newton iteration, as explained in the
Network Computations section. Our approach allows solution for
a gas lifted riser that includes multiple wells flowing to the riser.
Third, the optimization problem is solved with a Newton reduc-
tion method in Rashid (2010), a genetic algorithm in Gutierrez
et al. (2007), and a mixed-integer nonlinear programming solver
in Rashid et al. (2011), while in our approach it is solved using
the GRG method. Fourth, in Rashid’s method the network con-
straints are generally managed using penalty imposition in the
optimization procedure. They did not give details on handling
constraints at individual network connections and nodes and the
manifold constraints. We provide a detailed procedure to strategi-
cally handle various network constraints in the sections Treatment
of Constraints and the Gas Lift Optimization Procedure section.
Fifth, in Rashid’s method, the wellhead pressure is updated by a
call to the network simulator to account for the effects of well
interaction. No coupling is made with the reservoir other than
the boundary conditions imposed (assuming fixed reservoir con-
ditions at a give timestep). In our implementation, the network
domain and the reservoir domain are fully coupled.
The optimization calculations proposed herein are implemented
in a commercial general-purpose black-oil and compositional
reservoir simulator featuring full implicit coupling of reservoir-
grid domain and surface-pipeline-network domain (Coats et al.
2003). Multiple reservoirs can be connected with the same surface
network. The governing equations of the two domains (reservoir-
grid and surface network) are linearized and are put in a single
Jacobian-matrix equation system, which is solved by a Newton
iteration—namely, a reservoir/network global Newton iteration.
However, the optimization is performed in a “standalone” network
solve (also using Newton iteration), assuming fixed reservoir grid
conditions (using the grid-cell pressures and phase compositions
from the preceding global Newton step) at the beginning of the
global Newton step. The determined optimal gas lift allocation
will be applied in the current global Newton iteration. Although
the optimization is explicit with regard to the global solve, the
reservoir and network conditions used by optimization will get
updated at the next global Newton step or timestep.
110
Methodology
Mathematically, the optimal gas lift allocation can be formulated
as a constrained nonlinear optimization problem in the following
form:
Maximize F (x ), x ∈ R n , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (1)
subject to constraints
Li ≤ gi (x ) ≤ U i , i = 1,$, m . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (2)
Sj ≤ xj ≤ H j, j = 1,$, n , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (3)
where F(x) is the objective function; x is the vector of n decision
variables; gi is the ith inequality constraint function; Li and Ui are
the lower and upper bounds of constraint gi, respectively; m is the
number of inequality constraints; and Sj and Hj are the lower and
upper bounds of the decision variable xj, respectively. The gas lift
rates are chosen as the decision variables.
We define an objective function as
F (x ) = Qoil Roil + Qgas Rgas − Qwater Rwat − Qglift Rglift , . . . . . . . . . . (4)
where, Qoil, Qgas, Qwater, and Qglift are the total volumetric flow rate of
oil-phase production, gas-phase production, water-phase produc-
tion, and gas lift injection at surface condition, respectively; Roil
is the unit value of the oil phase; Rgas is the unit value of the gas
phase; Rwat is the unit processing cost of water phase; and Rglift is
the unit operating cost of gas lift.
The optimization problem is solved by a derivative-based opti-
mizer using the GRG algorithm, ranked as one of the most efficient
algorithms for the nonlinearly constrained optimization problem,
especially for cases with a large number of decision variables. The
function evaluations of the optimization are provided by network
solutions.
Network Computations
A surface pipeline network includes all wells and the connected
pipelines and surface facilities. It consists of connections and
nodes. Types of connections include well tubing strings, pipes,
chokes, and pumps. Types of nodes include perforation inlets/out-
lets, gathering centers, and separators. Produced- or injected-fluid
streams flow through the connections and join at the nodes. The
network flow computations are formulated as steady state, because
the connections and nodes are treated as having no volume. Bound-
ary conditions are set by network sink and source pressures, source
fluid compositions and perforated reservoir grid-cell pressures, and
fluid mobilities. The network equations consist of
1. Connection equations imposed at connections
2. Perforation equations at perforations
3. Mass-balance equations at nodes
These equations are linearized and solved at each Newton step.
Further details can be found in Coats et al. (2003) and Shiralkar
and Watts (2005).
For a connection without a rate or pressure constraint, the con-
nection equation is a hydraulics equation that relates the pressure
drop across the connection to fluid-component mass-flow rates
using either a correlation or a hydraulics table. For a connection
with constraints, the connection equation can be a hydraulics equa-
tion, a rate-constraint equation, or a pressure-constraint equation,
depending on which equation most constrains the flow rate. When
a constraint determines the flow rate of a connection, the constraint
is said to be “active.” Physically, this means that a choke or valve at
the connection reduces the flow rate so that the constraint is exactly
satisfied. Therefore, the pressure drop across the connection is
larger than it would be if the hydraulics equation were active. It
is critical to determine a correct set of active network constraints,
otherwise the network solution could be incorrect because some
constraints are violated, or if the network is overconstrained,
the equations could be singular. Watts et al. (2009) proposed an
February 2012 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
innovative systematic method using the slack variable for active
network constraint determination, which has been implemented in
our network simulation.
If needed, a part of the network can be constructed and solved
using the same kind of equations and solution procedure as in the
full-network solve, given the pressure constraints at its terminal
nodes, or the rate constraints at the terminal connections (the
terminal nodes and connections are where the partial network is
decoupled from the rest of the full network) and constant reservoir
grid conditions. In our simulator, we use the same program for
partial- and full-network computations, which greatly simplified
the implementation.
Treatment of Constraints
Various user-specified constraints can be set at different points of
the network. Typically these are maximum flow-rate constraints at
individual connections and minimum flowing-pressure constraints
at individual nodes. There may also be a maximum flow-rate con-
straint on the sum of flow rates at a list of controlled connections.
This type of constraint is referred to as a “target” in the paper.
To allocate the target rate to controlled connections, a spe-
cial network solution, referred to in the paper as the “potential”
network solution, needs to be performed. That is, the network
is solved with all targets removed, but all rate constraints at
individual connections and all pressure constraints at nodes are
retained (assuming fixed reservoir conditions). Therefore, all the
constraints at individual connections and nodes are satisfied using
the slack-variable method (Watts et al. 2009) in the potential
network solve. Flow rates in this solution represent the potential
productivity or injectivity of the connections. The target rate is
then allocated to the connections according to their potential flow
rate if the total potential rate exceeds the target rate. This way, a
target is converted to rate constraints at individual connections.
All constraints (including targets) will be satisfied in the following
reservoir/network global Newton iteration.
There are two types of target: scale type and ranking type. With
scale type, the target rate is allocated to the controlled connections
according to some formula, such as in proportion to their potential
flow rates or in proportion to a specified guide rate. With ranking
type, the controlled connections are ranked by some criterion such
as water cut. Then, in the ranked order, the connections are shut in
until the next connection would result in the flow rate being less
than the target rate. This connection is then produced at a reduced
rate so that the target is exactly met, and the remaining open con-
nections are produced at their maximum rate. Because each target
has multiple controlled connections, it is possible to exactly satisfy
multiple targets simultaneously.
In our implementation, the potential network solution described
will be used as function evaluations in the optimization procedure,
and the scale-type targets are converted to constraints of the opti-
mization problem. For clarity, all the user-specified constraints
set at the network are called “network constraints,” while the
constraints defined for the optimization problem are referred to as
“optimization constraints.”
Gas Lift Optimization Procedure
The procedure works using the following steps:
1. At the beginning of a selected reservoir/network global Newton
step for a timestep when the gas lift optimization is performed, solve
the optimization problem with the GRG optimizer using the values
of decision variables from the previous optimization solution as the
initial guess. The function evaluations of the objective function and
the constraint functions, as well as the necessary derivatives of the
functions, are provided by the potential network solutions, assuming
fixed reservoir grid conditions (pressure, phase mobilities, and phase
compositions). All scale-type targets are treated as optimization
constraints; the total available gas lift rate is also set as an optimiza-
tion constraint. We propose two methods for the potential network
solutions, as explained in the Function Evaluations section.
2. Allocate the gas lift rates according to the solution of the
decision variables. All network rate constraints at individual con-
nections and all network pressure constraints have been satisfied
February 2012 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
through the function evaluations (network solves). All scale-type
targets have been satisfied as optimization constraints.
3. After the optimization is performed, a target allocation
procedure is performed on all ranking-type targets. Flow rates on
the controlled connections are scaled back to meet these targets if
necessary. The gas lift rates are scaled back accordingly to achieve
the well flow rates, as described in the Gas Lift Rate Reduction
section.
4. Repeat Steps 1 through 3 once if any gas lift rate has been
scaled back in Step 3.
5. Solve the grid/network linearized system in the current global
Newton step with determined gas lift rates.
6. Repeat Steps 1 through 5 until the global Newton iteration
converges.
7. March to the next timestep.
Fig. 1 shows the flow chart of the whole procedure. Table 1
summarizes how the various constraints are satisfied.
Function Evaluations
The majority of computational time of the optimization procedure
is spent on the function evaluations because each involves a poten-
tial network solution. We propose two methods for these potential
network solutions.
Full-Network Solution. The first method is based on full-net-
work solution (see the Network Computations section). During
the iterative steps of the optimization, the values of the objective
function and constraint functions are calculated using the connec-
tion volumetric flow rates of the full-network potential solution.
The derivatives of these functions with respect to the decision
variables (gas lift rates) are combinations of the derivatives of
the connection volumetric phase flow rates, Q, with respect to
the decision variables, which can be calculated through the chain
rule, as follows:
∂Qk nc ∂Qk ∂ql
=∑ , k = oil, gas, water;; j = 1,$, n , . . . . . (5)
∂x j l =1 ∂ql ∂x j
where nc is the number of fluid components; ql is the mass flow rate
of Component l, which is one of the primary unknowns in network
equation system; xj is a decision variable; and n is the number of
∂Qk
decision variables. is evaluated through flash calculations. To
∂ql
∂ql
obtain , we perturb the right-hand side of the connection equa-
∂x j
tion at the gas lift connection corresponding to xj in the linearized
network equation system and solve the system. The matrix of the
linearized equations has already been factored in the full-network
solve, the solution of the perturbed system requires only a for-
ward and backward substitution, which is relatively inexpensive.
However, because a large number of function evaluations may be
needed during optimization iterations and the computational cost
of function evaluations can be very high for a relatively large net-
work, this approach can be prohibitively expensive.
Proxy Functions Based on Partial-Network Solution. The sec-
ond method constructs a set of tabular proxy functions that
approximate the objective function and constraints as functions of
gas lift rates. This approach is based on the assumption that the
gathering nodes where the gas lifted wells or risers join have stable
pressures. Therefore, these wells/risers can be decoupled from each
other at the gathering nodes, and the interaction between wells is
ignored. This assumption is generally reasonable because wells are
normally choked at the wellhead and the flow through the choke
can be critical (at sonic velocity), or multiple wells are gathered
at a separator under a pressure control, or the pressure drop across
the well tubing is dominant in the pipeline network. Numerical
experiments also showed that the gathering-node pressures tend to
be stable after a short period of time (a few timesteps) once the gas
lift injection starts. In addition, the gathering-node pressures get
updated at every global Newton step, so the interactions between
111
 Start of timestep

Satisfy:
Gas lift optimization with GRG Rate/pressure constraints
at individual connections and
nodes, and scale-type targets.
Rate allocation for ranking-type Satisfy:
Next global Once targets
Ranking-type targets.
Newton step

Scale back gas lift rates

Reservoir/network global Newton

No
Converged?

Yes
Next timestep

Fig. 1—Flow chart of gas lift optimization procedure.

wells have been taken into account in an explicit manner. Another
assumption of the method is that each gas lifted well or riser has
only one gas lift injection point, while the method based on full-
network solution does not have this restriction.
For every gas lifted well/riser, a partial network consisting of
this well/riser up to the first gathering node (or the sink node if
the well/riser connects to the sink directly) is set up. The terminal
node at the top of the partial network takes the pressure from the
previous reservoir/network global Newton step as the minimum
pressure constraint. Fig. 2 is an illustration of how a full network
is decoupled into two partial networks at the gathering node (Node
2). Because the flow rates of the partial networks are determined
by the boundary condition at Node 2 (node pressure is P2), Node
1 and Conn 1 become irrelevant and are excluded from the partial
networks. For a gas lifted riser, the partial network includes all
wells flowing to the riser. The gas lift rate of a partial network is
a decision variable. The partial-network model is solved over a
range of prespecified gas lift rates to give the tabular sets neces-
sary to furnish the proxy models of the objective and constraint
functions. The proxy value of the objective function of a partial
network can be evaluated using Eq. 4 on the basis of solution of
the partial network at a given gas lift rate. The same approach is
used for the proxy values of constraint functions. Fig. 3 shows a
sample proxy function of the objective function, and Fig. 4 shows
a sample proxy function of an oil-phase rate corresponding to an
oil-phase target, both as functions of a decision variable (gas lift
rate of a gas lifted well). In this example, the well cannot flow until
the gas lift rate is greater than approximately 600 Mscf/D.
The overall objective function (defined in Eq. 4) can be defined
as the sum of the proxy functions of the objective function of all
gas lifted wells:
n
F (x ) = ∑ Fpj (x j ) , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (6)
j =1
where Fpj(xj) is the proxy function of the objective function of Well
j, which is associated with Decision Variable j.
Optimization constraint function in Eq. 2 becomes
n
gi (x ) = ∑ g pi , j (x j ) , i = 1,$, m , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (7)
j =1
where gpi,j is the proxy function of Well j, corresponding to Opti-
mization Constraint i.
Once the tabular proxy functions for each gas lifted well have
been constructed at selected reservoir/network global Newton
steps, the gas lift optimization can be performed using the values
of the overall objective function and constraint functions calculated
from Eqs. 6 and 7. Either piecewise linear interpolation or piece-
wise polynomial interpolation of the tabular proxy functions can
be used at a given set of decision-variable values (gas lift rates).
The derivatives of these functions with respect to a decision vari-
able are simply the slopes of the proxy functions of this decision
variable, or
∂F ( x ) dFpj (x j )
= , j = 1,$, n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (8)
∂x j dx j

TABLE 1—TREATMENT OF VARIOUS CONSTRAINTS

Constraints Satisfied At

Rate constraints at individual connections “Potential” network solution for function

and pressure constraints at nodes evaluations
Scale-type targets Optimization constraints
Ranking-type targets Post-optimization scaling back procedure

112 February 2012 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering

 Sink

conn 1
Sink Sink
node 1 Pmin = 14.7 psi
conn 2 conn 2 conn 2

node 2 Pmin = P2 P min = P2

conn 3 conn 6
Decoupling node 2 node 2
conn 6
conn 3
node 6
node 3 node 6
node 3

conn 4 conn 7 conn 4 conn 7

Gas lift 1 Gas lift 2 Gas lift 1 Gas lift 2
node 4 node 7 node 4 node 7
conn 5 conn 8 conn 5 conn 8

Perf 1 Perf 2 Perf 1 Perf 2

node 5 node 8 node 5 node 8

Full Network Partial Network 1 Partial Network 2

Fig. 2—Decoupling of a full network into partial networks.

and relatively little. Fig. 5 shows an example of the proxy functions of

∂gi (x ) dg pi , j (x j )
= , i = 1,$, m ;
∂x j dx j
The method using proxy functions is much faster than the
method using the full-network solution for the following reasons:
First, the number of gas lift rates used to construct proxy functions
is relatively small (approximately 10) compared to the number of
full-network solutions needed in the first method. Second, solving
the partial network is much faster than solving the full network
because the former is a much smaller linearized equation system.
Third, the solving of partial networks can be easily parallelized
because they are decoupled.
Proxy-Function Scaling
When the network configuration and constraints do not change with
time, and the pressure at the decoupling node of the partial network
does not change much, the shapes of proxy functions may change
the objective function at two timesteps, t1 and t2 with t1 < t2, that
are close in time. In this case, instead of calculating all actual points
j = 1,$, n . . . . . . . . . . (9)
of t2, we could first evaluate the function values at three gas lift rates
at time t2 using partial-network solutions and compare them with
the values at time t1. If they change only slightly and the changes
are in the same trend, we could safely estimate the values at other
gas lift rates at time t2 by proportionally shifting the curve at time
t1 to time t2, on the basis of the three points computed at time t2.
In other words, the other points in curve t2 could be calculated
by interpolating the three actual points. This way, we reduce the
number of partial-network solutions required to construct the proxy
functions at time t2. The three checking points can be computed at,
respectively, a gas lift rate close to zero, the gas lift rate that gives
the maximum objective-function value at time t1, and the gas lift
rate at which the slope of objective function at t1 is largest when
the gas lift rate is in logarithmic scale. If the third point is too close
to the first or the second point, we instead compute the point at the
average gas lift rate of the first and the second points.

1.20E+05 3.00E+04
Proxy Function of Objective Function

Proxy Function of Oil-Phase Rate

1.00E+05
2.50E+04
8.00E+04
Constraint (STB/D)

2.00E+04
(Dollars/day)

6.00E+04
1.50E+04
4.00E+04

1.00E+04
2.00E+04

0.00E+00 5.00E+03

-2.00E+04 0.00E+00
10 100 1000 10000 100000 10 100 1000 10000 100000
Gas Lift Rate (Mscf/D) Gas Lift Rate (Mscf/D)

Fig. 3—Proxy function of the objective function associated Fig. 4—Proxy function of a constraint function associated with
with a decision variable. a decision variable.

February 2012 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering 113

 110000
100000
Benefit Function (Dollars/day)
90000
80000
70000
60000
50000
40000
0.1 10
Gas Lift Rate (Mscf/D)
Fig. 5—Proxy functions at two timesteps.
Gas Lift Rate Reduction
As mentioned in Step 3 of the gas lift optimization procedure,
certain connection rates may need to be reduced to satisfy rank-
ing-type targets. A target allocation procedure determines if there
are any ranking-type targets getting violated after the gas lift
optimization. If any such target is violated, the flow rates of the
controlled connections of the target are reduced on the basis of
the ranking method (e.g., the flow rate of the connection with the
highest water cut will be reduced to meet the target if the ranking
method is water-cut based). The reduction factor is calculated and
is propagated to all downstream and upstream connections. The
gas lift rate can be reduced according to how much the flow rate
of the associated well tubing connection has been reduced. When
the proxy function method is used, we can interpolate a phase-flow
rate (e.g., oil-phase-flow rate) in the corresponding proxy function
to obtain the reduced gas lift rate.
When the full-network solution method is used, we may simply
reduce the gas lift rate using the same reduction factor as is being
applied to the flow rate at the gas lifted well tubing connection. This
approach assumes a linear relationship between the well-tubing-
connection flow rate and the gas lift flow rate, and this assumption
can be inaccurate. To improve the solution, we construct a local
proxy function (a phase-flow rate vs. gas lift rate, such as in Fig. 4)
for the gas lifted well through a partial-network solution using the
latest gathering-node pressure as the minimum pressure constraint
QOP : Fixed-slope
QGLG : Fixed-slope
Normalized QGLG — Gas Lift Injection Rate
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0 0.2
114
at the terminal node of the partial network. The proxy function can
then be used to estimate the reduced gas lift rate. Note that in this
t1
approach, the proxy function is used just for gas lift rate reduction
t2 estimates. It is not involved in gas lift optimization calculations.
Examples and Comparisons
For convenience, the simulator in which the proposed gas lift
optimization methods are implemented is referred to as Simula-
tor N. We compare our implementation with another commercial
reservoir simulator, Simulator V (Litvak and Darlow 1995), in one
of our examples. A scheme of automatic allocation of gas lift using
a performance curve has been implemented in Simulator V. In this
scheme, nodal analysis is used to construct the gas lift performance
curve (produced-oil-phase rate vs. gas lift rate) at selected timesteps
for each gas lifted well, assuming fixed minimum tubinghead pres-
1000 100000 10000000
sures. The gas lift rate is calculated (it is basically a table-lookup
procedure) on the basis of the minimum lift efficiencies of the
wells specified by the user, where the lift efficiency is defined as
the incremental oil produced per increment of gas lift gas, which is
effectively the slope of the gas lift performance curve. In Simulator
V, the reservoir-grid domain and the surface-network domain have
partial implicit coupling because they are solved with an alternative
Schwarz procedure; that is, at selected timesteps, the network is
solved with fixed reservoir grid conditions, then the reservoir grid
is solved with updated well bottomhole or well tubinghead condi-
tions provided by the latest network solution. These network and
reservoir grid solutions are repeated iteratively until the boundary
values (well flow rates and bottomhole pressures) between them
are converged. For comparison, we refer to the automatic gas lift
allocation method in Simulator V as the “fixed-slope” scheme,
the method using proxy functions in our implementation as the
“proxy” scheme, and the method using full-network solution in
our implementation as the “full-network” scheme.
Case 1. Case 1 is a black-oil model simulated for 900 days. It has
four gas lifted production wells with fixed minimum tubinghead
pressures, one gas-injection well, and one water-injection well. All
wells are connected directly to a sink or a source. To match the
user-specified minimum lift efficiency (0.01 STB/Mscf) used by the
“fixed-slope” scheme, we set Roil = USD 30/STB, Rgas = 0, Rwat =
0, and Rglift = USD 0.3/Mscf in the proxy and the full-network
schemes so that Rglift/Roil = 0.01 STB/Mscf. There is an 8,000 STB/D
maximum oil-phase rate constraint at every well but they are inac-
tive during the simulation. The maximum gas lift rate allowed for
each well is 10,000 Mscf/D. Fig. 6 compares the oil-production
QOP : Full-network QOP : Proxy
QGLG : Full-network QGLG : Proxy
Normalized QOP — Oil-Production Rate
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Time (days)
Fig. 6—Oil-production rates and gas lift rates of Case 1.
February 2012 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
 QWP : Fixed-slope QWP : Full-network QWP : Proxy

1.1

Normalized QWP — Water-Production Rate

1.0

0.9

0.8

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Time (days)

Fig. 7—Water-production rates of Case 1.

rate and gas lift injection rate of the simulation results. Before 130 slope, proxy, and full-network schemes are 119, 124, and 316
days, there is an active water-production target (8,000 STB/D) that seconds, respectively. As a result, the simulation speed of the proxy
prohibits any gas lift injection. Afterward, as the reservoir depletes, scheme in Simulator N is comparable with the fixed-slope scheme
Simulators V and N manage to inject gas lift to improve oil produc- in Simulator V and is approximately 2.5 times as fast as the full-
tion without violating the water-production target. The total lift gas network scheme. This example demonstrates that the optimization
available is 10,000 Mscf/D. The proxy scheme predicts a higher method using proxy functions is much more efficient than the
oil-production rate after approximately 200 days by injecting more method using the full-network solution and can achieve a more
lift gas. Fig. 7 shows that the proxy scheme also manages to reduce optimal solution than the fixed lift efficiency scheme.
water production compared to the fixed-slope scheme. A closer
investigation of the results shows that the proxy scheme injects Case 2. Case 2 is used to investigate the effects of the interactions
more lift gas in three production wells with high oil-production between wells. The properties of the reservoir domain are based on
rates and low water cuts as well as less lift gas in a well with low the SPE9 test case (Killough 1995), but the values of solution-gas/oil
oil-production rate and high water cut compared to the fixed-slope ratio (Rs) have been reduced by approximately three times (Table 2)
scheme. This is probably because the proxy scheme performs to make the effect of gas lift more obvious. It is a black-oil model
an optimization, and handles constraints more strictly than the with 30 production wells, 20 of which are gas lifted starting at time
fixed-slope method. Fig. 8 shows that the proxy scheme increases of 50 days. There are no injection wells. All the wells are connected
the cumulative benefit by approximately 3% over the fixed-slope through a network that has three levels of gathering centers. The
scheme. The solution of the full-network scheme is virtually the highest level connects to a sink (Fig. 9). All network constraints are
same as that of the proxy scheme in Figs. 6 and 7, which provides listed in Table 3. We set Roil = USD 30/STB, Rgas = USD 3/Mscf,
a confirmation of the proxy-function implementation. Rwat = USD 2/STB, and Rglift = USD 4.5/Mscf. Most of the oil-rate
The simulation CPU times (in a Windows XP machine with constraints at wells are inactive during the simulation, and there is
Intel Xeon 2.33 GHz CPU and 3 GB of RAM) using the fixed- no active pressure constraint except for a minimum pressure con-
straint (100 psia) at the sink node. Therefore, the well flow rates are
mostly determined by the hydraulics in the tubings and flowlines,
1.2
and the interactions between wells are strong, especially when the
Fixed-slope
Normalized Cumulative Benefit

1
Proxy TABLE 2—SOLUTION-GAS/OIL RATIO IN CASE 2

0.8 Pressure (psia) Rs (Mscf/STB)

4000.0 0.5000
0.6 3600.0 0.4632
3200.0 0.4231
0.4 2800.0 0.3764
2400.0 0.3279
0.2 2000.0 0.2755
1600.0 0.2212
0 1200.0 0.1661
0 200 400 600 800 1000
800.0 0.1109
Time (days)
400.0 0.0539
Fig. 8—Cumulative benefit of Case 1. 14.7 0.0

February 2012 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering 115

 Sink

Pmin = 100 psia

Well-17
Gas lift

Fig. 9—Surface-network structure of Case 2. The arrows at the bottom of the plot denote gas lift injection to the bottomhole
nodes of the wells.

TABLE 3—NETWORK CONSTRAINTS IN CASE 2

15,000 STB/D, time < 50 days
Maximum oil-phase rate constraint at each well
5,000 STB/D, time 50 days
0 Mscf/D, time < 50 days
Maximum gas lift rate constraint at each well
20,000 Mscf/D, time 50 days
Target rate of total gas lift 20,000 Mscf/D
Minimum pressure constraint at sink node 100 psia

gas lift first starts. The pressure drops after the well tubing heads are time = 60 days, the full-network method is used to handle the strong
approximately at 400 psi. Fig. 10 shows that the oil-phase-produc- coupling of wells shortly after the gas lift starts; after that time, the
tion rates of the field predicted by full-network and proxy methods proxy method is used for faster simulation. We refer to this scheme
are noticeably different at the early stage of the simulation after gas as the “mixed” method. The switch time is chosen on the basis of the
lift starts. We now apply these two methods in sequence: Before observation that the flow is about to be stable using the full-network

QOP : Full-network QOP : Proxy QOP : Mixed

QGLG : Full-network QGLG : Proxy QGLG : Mixed

25000 60000
QGLG — Gas Lift Injection Rate (Mscf / D)

QOP — Oil-Production Rate (STB / D)

20000
50000

15000

40000

10000

30000
5000

0 20000
0 50 100 150 200 250
Time (days)

Fig. 10—Case 2: Effects of interactions between wells.

116 February 2012 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering

 QOP W17 : Full-network QOP W17 : Proxy
QOP W17 : Mixed QGLG W17 : Full-network
QGLG W17 : Proxy QGLG W17 : Mixed

3000 6000

QGLG — Gas Lift Injection Rate (Mscf / D)

QOP — Oil-Production Rate (STB / D)

2500 5000

2000 4000

1500 3000

1000 2000

500 1000

0 0
0 50 100 150 200 250
Time (days)

Fig. 11—Oil-production rates and gas lift rates of Well-17 in Case 2.

method approximately 10 days after the gas lift injection starts. There are 100 production wells and a number of gas- and water-
A general criterion to determine when the switch should happen injection wells. 60 of the production wells are assisted with gas
is still under investigation. Fig. 10 shows that the mixed method lift. The network consists of approximately 500 connections, with
achieved production rates very close to the full-network method. The a large number of rate and pressure constraints, and approximately
total gas lift rates computed by the three methods are overlapped. 50 production and injection targets of either scale type or ranking
Fig. 11 shows the oil-production rates and gas lift rates of Well-17. type. There are multiple levels of gathering centers and separators
For a short period of time after the gas lift starts, the rates computed in the network. The network eventually flows to a sink with a
by the proxy method show some oscillations because unstable well- minimum pressure constraint of 14.7 psia. Complicated procedures
head pressures, as shown in Fig. 11. The mixed method achieves are defined to dynamically change the constraints and network
results very close to those of the full-network method. The CPU configurations during the simulation. We set Roil = USD 60/STB,
time of the network calculations of the three methods (full-network, Rgas = 0, Rwat = 0, and Rglift = USD 0.6 /Mscf in this case. The oil-
proxy, and mixed) are 126, 50, and 71 seconds, respectively. phase-production rates computed by the full-network method agree
well with those computed by the proxy method, which is shown in
Case 3. Case 3 is a multiple-reservoir compositional model. More Fig. 12. The gas lift rates of the two methods follow approximately
than 10 reservoirs are connected through a common surface net- the same trend, but the former gives higher values than the later, as
work. The fluids of these reservoirs have up to 19 components. shown in Fig. 12. The case was run in parallel on four processors.

QOP : Full-network QOP : Proxy

1.2 1.2
QGLG : Full-network QGLG : Proxy
Normalized QGLG — Gas Lift Injection Rate

Normalized QOP — Oil-Production Rate

1.0 1.0

0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0 0
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000
Time (days)

Fig. 12—Oil-production rates and gas lift rates of Case 3.

February 2012 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering 117

The proxy method is much faster than the full-network method.
The network solution CPU times of the two methods are 4.4 hours
and 9.9 hours, respectively.
From our general observations of a number of test cases (not all
shown in this paper), we have found that although the total produc-
tion rates predicted by the different optimization methods normally
match well, the gas lift rate allocations to individual wells can be
quite different because the optimization can be trapped by different
local optimal points. In addition, the network solution is typically
sensitive by nature; a small difference in the solutions at a timestep
may create very different flow patterns (different wells flow or are
shut-in) at a later timestep. The sensitivity of solutions can be allevi-
ated by adding rate or pressure constraints at individual wells.
Conclusions
1. We have implemented an efficient gas lift optimization scheme
in a general-purpose black-oil and compositional reservoir
simulator with fully coupled reservoir grid domain and sur-
face-network domain. The nonlinearly constrained optimization
problem is solved by the GRG method.
2. Network constraints are satisfied strategically in the optimiza-
tion scheme: All surface-network constraints are satisfied at
individual connections or nodes; all scale-type targets are satis-
fied during optimization; and all ranking-type targets are satis-
fied through a gas lift reduction procedure after optimization.
3. The function evaluations for optimization can be performed
by two methods. The first method repeatedly solves the full-
network equations using Newton iteration. The second method
constructs a set of proxy functions using partial-network solu-
tions.
4. The full-network method is more rigorous because it takes into
account the flow interactions among wells; the proxy-function
method neglects these interactions, assuming a fixed gather-
ing-node pressure, so the solution can be suboptimal when the
interactions are strong, especially during a short period of time
after the gas lift first starts. However, the proxy-function method
has the following advantages over the full-network method:
a. The computation speed of the proxy-function method is sig-
nificantly faster because once the proxy functions have been
constructed, they can be used to inexpensively approximate the
objective function and constraints as functions of gas lift rates
during optimization iterations. On the contrary, the full-network
method has to resolve the whole network at every optimization
iteration, which can be very expensive.
b. The number of partial-network solutions for proxy-function
construction can be reduced through a simple interpolation
scheme if the shapes of the proxy functions do not change much
between two optimizations.
c. The calculations of partial networks in proxy-function construc-
tion have been parallelized for faster simulation.
5. According to the test cases presented in the paper, the production
values predicted by the two methods are in good agreement. We
also observe that while the total gas lift rates given by the two
methods generally follow the same trend, the gas lift allocations
at individual wells can be different because optimization can be
trapped by local optimal points using derivative-based optimizer,
and solutions of the surface network are sensitive by nature. The
two methods can be used in tandem during the simulation.
Nomenclature
F = overall objective function, USD/D
Fpj = proxy function of objective function of decision variable
j, USD/D
gi = constraint function i
gpi,j = proxy function of constraint function i of decision vari-
able j
Hj = the upper bound of decision variable j
i = subscript denoting constraint function
j = subscript denoting decision variable
k = subscript denoting fluid phase
118
Li = the lower bound of constraint function i
m = number of constraint functions
n = number of decision variables
nc = number of fluid components
p = node pressure, psi
pmin = minimum allowed pressure, psi
ql = mass flow rate of component l
Qk = total volumetric flow rate of phase k
Qoil = total volumetric flow rate of oil-phase production, STB/D
QOP = volumetric flow rate of oil-phase production, STB/D
Qgas = total volumetric flow rate of gas-phase production, Mscf/D
Qglift = total volumetric flow rate of lift gas, Mscf/D
Qwater = total volumetric flow rate of water-phase production, STB/D
QWP = volumetric flow rate of water-phase production, STB/D
QGLG = volumetric flow rate of lift gas, Mscf/D
Rn = n-dimensional real coordinate space
Roil = unit value of oil phase, USD/STB
Rgas = unit value of gas phase, USD/Mscf
Rglift = unit cost of gas lift operation, USD/Mscf
Rwat = unit cost of water-phase treatment, USD/STB
Sj = the lower bound of decision variable j
Ui = the upper bound of constraint function i
x = vector of decision variables
xj = decision variable j
Acknowledgments
Bill Watts provided helpful comments during revision of this paper.
The authors wish to thank Halliburton for permission to present
this paper.
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Qin Lu is a technical advisor for Landmark Software and
Services at Halliburton where he works on the development of
Nexus reservoir simulator. He holds a BS and a MS degrees, both
in mechanical engineering, from the University of Science and
Technology of China, respectively, and a PhD degree in petro-
leum engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Graham Fleming is a chief technical advisor for Landmark
Software and Services at Halliburton where he is the devel-
opment lead for the Nexus reservoir simulator. He has a PhD
degree from the California Institute of Technology and a BE
degree from the University of Auckland.
119