NODAL ANALYSIS

Systems analysis may be used for many purposes in analyzing and designing producing oil and gas
wells.
Typical applications include:
Estimation of flow rates
Selection of tubing size
Selection of flowline size
Selection of wellhead pressures and surface choke sizing
Estimation of the effects of reservoir pressure depletion
Identification of flow restrictions
Other typical applications are:
Sizing subsurface safety valves
Evaluating perforation density
Gravel pack design
Artificial lift design
Optimizing injection gas-liquid ratio for gas lift
Evaluating the effects of lower wellhead pressures or installation of compression
Evaluating well stimulation treatments

Systems analysis examples
Example 1
Analyze a gas well to select an appropriate tubing size. The gas well under consideration is at 9,000 ft
with a reservoir pressure of 4,000 psia.
Solution The first step in applying systems analysis is to select a node to divide the system. Initially,
the node is selected to be at the perforations to isolate the inflow performance (reservoir behavior)
from the flow behavior in the tubing. For this particular case, the well is flowing at critical flow
conditions, and, consequently, the wellhead choke serves as a discontinuity in the system, which
allows the use of the wellhead pressure as the terminal point for the outflow curve. Once the node
point is selected, the pressure relations for the inflow and outflow sections of the system are
determined. For this example, Eqs. 5 and 6 represent the inflow and outflow pressure relationships,
respectively.
....................(5)
....................(6)

With these basic relationships, the flowing bottomhole pressure is calculated for different production
rates for both the inflow and outflow sections. Table 1 presents the inflow performance data
while Table 2 presents the calculated pressures for three different tubing sizes using a constant
wellhead pressure of 1,000 psia. These data are used to construct the inflow and outflow curves
in Fig. 3 to estimate the production rates and pressures for each tubing size. The intersection of the
outflow curves with the inflow curve dictates the estimated point of continuity and the anticipated
producing conditions for the analyzed system. For this example, the production rate increases with
increasing tubing size, yielding 4,400 Mscf/D for 1.90-in. tubing, 4,850 Mscf/D for 2 3/8-in. tubing, and
5,000 Mscf/D for 2 7/8-in. tubing.
Table 1

Table 2


Fig. 3Systems analysis graph with a bottomhole pressure node for Example 1.

The same well could be analyzed with the wellhead as the system node. This allows the effect of
changes in wellhead pressure on well performance to be determined. The new inflow and outflow
pressure relationships are
....................(7)
for the inflow curve, and
....................(8)
for the outflow curve. Table 2 shows the pressure-rate relationship for both the inflow and outflow
curves. Because the wellhead is the node in this analysis, the outflow curve will be constant and
equal to the anticipated flowing wellhead pressure.
The data are plotted in Fig. 4 and yield the same producing rates and flowing bottomhole pressures
that were determined when the flowing bottomhole pressure was used as the node. This is as
expected because the choice of a division point or node does not affect the results for a given system.
If the wellhead pressure is decreased to 250 psia, the producing rate will change also. This effect is
readily determined by constructing a constant wellhead pressure line of 250 psia on the graph and
selecting the points of intersection for each tubing size. As observed from the graph, the anticipated
production rates increase to 4,950 Mscf/D, 5,200 Mscf/D, and 5,300 Mscf/D for the three tubing sizes
by lowering the wellhead pressure.

Fig. 4Systems analysis graph with a wellhead pressure node for Example 1.
Example 2
Investigate the effects of reservoir depletion of an oil well to estimate producing conditions and
consider the need for artificial lift. The well under consideration is producing with a constant wellhead
pressure of 250 psia and is controlled by the choke.
Solution Isolate the reservoir performance to visualize the effect of changing reservoir pressure. The
flowing bottomhole pressure at mid-perforations is selected as the node and, as the well is producing
under critical flow conditions, the wellhead will serve as the terminal end of the system.
The inflow and outflow rate-pressure data is generated with Eqs. 5 and 6. Table 3 provides the inflow
performance data for average reservoir pressures of 2,500 psia and 2,000 psia.Table 4 shows the
tubing-intake data or outflow performance data for a flowing wellhead pressure of 250 psia with 2 7/8-
in. tubing. Fig. 5 plots this information, which is used to determine the producing conditions at the two
reservoir pressures. At an average reservoir pressure of 2,500 psia, the curves intersect at an oil
production rate of 380 STB/D and a flowing bottomhole pressure of 1,650 psia. However, there is no
intersection or point of continuity between the inflow and outflow performance curves when the
reservoir pressure declines to 2,000 psia. This indicates that the well will not flow under these
reservoir conditions. On the basis of this analysis, the effects of lowering the wellhead pressure,
reducing the tubing size, or installing artificial lift early in the life of the well to enhance its deliverability
should be investigated.
Table 3

Table 4


Fig. 5Systems analysis graph with a bottomhole pressure node for Example 2.

Nomenclature

= average reservoir pressure, m/Lt
2
, psia
ps = separator pressure, m/Lt
2
, psia
pwf = bottomhole pressure, m/Lt
2
, psia
pwh = wellhead pressure, m/Lt
2
, psia
p1 = pressure loss in reservoir, m/Lt
2
, psia
p2 = pressure loss across completion, m/Lt
2
, psia
p3 = pressure loss in tubing, m/Lt
2
, psia
p4 = pressure loss in flowline, m/Lt
2
, psia
pd = change in downstream pressure, m/Lt
2
, psia
pp = difference in pseudopressures, m/Lt
3
, psia
2
/cp
pT = total pressure loss, m/Lt
2
, psia
pu = change in upstream pressure, m/Lt
2
, psia
p
2
= difference in pressures squared, m
2
/L
2
t
4
, psia