Under high water cut conditions, oil is produced as an oil-in-water dispersion. During production the oil droplets will decrease in size: at the well bottom they are much larger than ar the surface, which has implications for the separation of the produced fluids. This paper describes laboratory work on the break-up processes occurring in the tubing and in the choke valve. Experiments carried out with two model tubings yielded that the maximum droplet size decreases with the volume flow rate and increases with the viscosity of the dispersed phase, oil. The measured maximum droplet size varied between about 100 and 500 my m. In the model choke valves, much smaller values for the maximum droplet size were found, down to about 20 my m. Also for the choke valve an increasing volume flow led to a decreasing maximum droplet size. In this case, however, the effect of the dispersed phase viscosity was small. The experimental data are in reasonable agreement with theories on the mechanism of droplet break-up. An important conclusion is, that during oil production under high water cut conditions, break-up of oil droplets will predominantly take place in the choke valve.
Break-up of oil droplets in the production system
1998
Seiten
Conference paper
Storage medium
English
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