Continuous Gas Lift Optimization With a Novel Genetic Algorithm

In continuous gas lift, gas may be injected continuously or intermittently, depending on the producing characteristics of the well and the arrangement of the gas-lift equipment. Being somehow an ancient tool with an age of over a century, gas lift is though still a challenging problem when overall optimization is the concern. When the injection gas is of a limited supply the problem is finding the best gas allocation scheme. However there are increasingly emerging cases in certain geographic localities where the gas supplies are usually unlimited. The optimization problem then totally travels to the wellbore and completion string and fully engages with multiphase flow concepts. In the present study an intelligent genetic algorithm has been developed to simultaneously optimize all effective factors namely, gas injection rate, injection depth and tubing diameter towards the maximum oil production rate with the water cut and injection pressure as the restrictions. The computations and real field data are mutually compared.