FEATURES OF USING CAPILLARY POLYMER-METAL PIPES FOR REAGENT SUPPLY IN HORIZONTAL WELLS

The development and exploitation of natural gas fields with depleted reserves in Western Siberia are invariably accompanied by a number of factors limiting production, as well as complicating the processes of hydrocarbon extraction from the productive formation, which requires the use of additional measures to maintain production. While declining production of gas and gas condensate fields under conditions of low reservoir pressure and a decrease in well flow rates to critical values at the bottomhole zone of the formation, a process of fluid accumulation occurs, which leads to unstable operation and spontaneous shutdown – well self-kill. The self-kill process causes a disruption of the stable flowing mode, a reduction in the flow rates of hydrocarbon products, an increase in the risk of hydrate formation, and the need for separation and disposal of significant amounts of liquid arises. As a result of studying the problem of well self-kill, it was found that the accumulation of liquid at the bottomhole occurs due to the critically low flow rate of the gas-liquid mixture in the lift pipes, production casing and in the filter (perforation) interval, which requires the use of special technological and technical solutions, especially for horizontal wells, in order to combat this problem. The known methods of removing accumulated liquid at the bottomhole of the well using foaming reagents are analyzed. The most well-known methods of supplying liquid foaming agents are given, the types of existing capillary polymer-metal pipes are considered in detail and their disadvantages are identified.