FOAM ASSISTED GAS LIFT (FAGL) TECHNIQUE: LABORATORY TESTS, FIELD APPLICATION, AND EVENTUAL EFFECTS ON CRUDE OIL PROCESSING

Even though the foam assisted gas-lift (FAGL) technology is not exactly a technical innovation, curiously, it has attracted the attention of the crude oil industry in recent years. Broadly speaking, the FAGL consists in either boosting the well’s crude oil flow rate while maintaining the same gas injection rate, or, conversely, it refers to maintaining the well´s crude oil production at a reduced gas injection rate. The application of the FAGL technology to a crude oil well is simple, just demanding the dosage of a tailored crude oil foamer surfactant (“crude oil foamer”) to the Gas Lift (GL) stream. Preliminary lab tests and the data recovered from the specialized literature together with the ones derived from the still sparse FAGL field applications have shown promising results. The FAGL´s underlying philosophy, its eventual interference on the topside crude oil processing, and some other pivotal FAGL-related questions are also addressed in this technical contribution.