New Developments in the Control of Fluid Dynamics of Wells and Risers in Oil Production Systems

A practical control algorithm for stabilizing flow in risers and oil production wells should meet several requirements. i) be simple, ii) able to operate with low-cost measurements and possibly contaminated with noise and iii) stabilize the flow without setting a value for the bottom pressure. An algorithm has been proposed which does not fix any reference for the bottom pressure. It uses as reference a value equal to zero for the derivative of the bottom pressure. This paper presents some changes in the algorithm in order to avoid the difficulties with derivatives and to simplify the tuning of its parameters. It also proposes a control methodology to suppress oscillations in the absence of automated production choke and downhole measurements.