DEVELOPMENT OF A CONTROL SYSTEM FOR OIL WELLS EQUIPPED WITH CONTINUOUS GAS-LIFT
artificial lift; PLC; PID controller; computer simulation.
It is in order to ensure the production of the well that electronic controllers have been developed for artificial lifting systems. It can be said that more than half of the industrial controllers in use today employ Proportional Integrative Derivative (PID) or modified PID control schemes. Due to changes in operating conditions, a system operating by Continuous Gas-Lift (CGL) needs constant monitoring. However, the use of the control technique alone may not be sufficient, requiring the use of equipment called Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) or any alternative that suits the characteristics of the process and is operationally feasible. In large production flow offshore wells, small errors in calculations can result in large changes in your production. This is why the PLC is becoming a familiar part of process controls in offshore installations, as they can be used with control systems that vary widely in their nature and complexity. The objective of this work is to develop a Supervisory Controller, which performs the monitoring and control of wells operating by CGL to optimize the production flow. This tool works emulating a PLC and has a PI-fuzzy controller and PID controller to carry out its activity. For validation purposes, a dynamic GLC simulator was used to assist the Supervisory Controller in tests performed with field data in computationally simulated wells. Through the tests carried out, it can be highlighted that the results obtained were significant considering that there was an improvement in the flow rate of liquid produced and a reduction in the amount of injected gas into one of the simulated wells.