doi:10.1155/2007/81519 Research Article An Investigation on Gas Lift Performance Curve in an Oil-Producing Well

The main objective in oil production system using gas lift technique is to obtain the op-timum gas injection rate which yields the maximum oil production rate. Relationship between gas injection rate and oil production rate is described by a continuous gas lift performance curve (GLPC). Obtaining the optimum gas injection rate is important be-cause excessive gas injection will reduce production rate, and also increase the operation cost. In this paper, we discuss a mathematical model for gas lift technique and the charac-teristics of the GLPC for a production well, for which one phase (liquid) is flowing in the reservoir, and two phases (liquid and gas) in the tubing. It is shown that in certain physi-cal condition the GLPC exists and is unique. Numerical computations indicate unimodal properties of the GLPC. It is also constructed here a numerical scheme based on genetic algorithm to compute the optimum oil production. Copyright © 2007 Deni Saepudin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 1