Boost Capacity of Velocity String Completions in Sultanate of Oman by Including Sliding Side Door

Abstract

Abstract Velocity strings are routinely installed to remediate liquid loading of gas wells. However, besides restoring stable production, velocity strings also reduce well capacity, easily by up to 50%. In PDO, a sliding side door (SSD) was introduced as part of the velocity string completion to reduce the loss of capacity by facilitating additional gas flow via the new annulus created between velocity string and original tubing. This paper documents different field cases that demonstrate how the SSD is manipulated to maximize well capacity, which in some cases was doubled for more than 1 year. The paper also presents modelling of gas production via velocity string, annulus or both (concurrent). Commercial software was not able to accurately predict the instability of concurrent gas production.