MOISTURE CONTENT OF NATURAL GAS IN BOTTOM HOLE ZONE

Abstract

For the traditional problem of gas flow to a well in the center of circular reservoir, the influence of initial reservoir conditions on dynamics of gas moisture content distribution has been determined. Investigations have been performed in the framework of mathematical model of non-isothermal real gas flow through porous media where heat conductivity was considered to be negligible in comparison with convective heat transfer. It is closed by empirical correlation of compressibility coefficient with pressure and temperature, checked in previous publications. Functional dependence of moisture content in gas on pressure and temperature is based on empirical modification of Bukacek relation. Numerical experiment was performed in the following way. At first step, axisymmetric problem of non-isothermal flow of real gas in porous media was solved for a given value of pressure at the borehole bottom, which gives the values of pressure and temperature as functions of time and radial coordinate. Conditions at the outer boundary of the reservoir correspond to water drive regime of gas production. At the second step, the calculated functions of time and coordinate were used to find the analogous function for moisture content. The results of experiment show that if reservoir temperature essentially exceeds gas – hydrate equilibrium temperature than moisture content in gas distribution is practically reflects the one of gas temperature. In the opposite case, gas will contain water vapor only near bottom hole and at the rest of reservoir it will be almost zero. In both cases, pressure manifests its role through the rate of gas production, which in turn influences convective heat transfer and gas cooling due to throttle effect.