Developing multilevel statistical models of determining bottom-hole flowing pressure in commercial oil well operations

Abstract

One of the major tasks of monitoring oil production well operations is to determine bottom-hole flowing pressure (BHFP). The overwhelming majority of wells in the Perm krai are serviced using borehole pumps, which makes it difficult to take direct bottom-hole flowing pressure measurements. The BHFP in these wells is very often determined by recalculating the parameters measured at the well mouth (annulus pressure, dynamic fluid level depth). The recalculation is done by procedures based on analytically determining the characteristics of the gas-liquid mixture in the wellbore, which is very inconsistent to perform due to the mixture’s complex behavior. This article proposes an essentially different approach to BHFP measurements, that relies on the mathematical processing of the findings of more than 4000 parallel mouth and deep investigations of the oil production wells of a large oil-production region. As a result, multivariate mathematical models are elaborated that allow reliably determining the BHFP of oil-production wells in operation.

Keywords

• oil production well
• bottom-hole flowing pressure
• BHFP determination technique
• multivariate statistical model
• regression analysis
• multilevel modeling.