Gas Well Deliquification Using Surfactant, Sodium Lauryl Sulphate

Nowadays, as natural gas is being treated as one of the major energy sources worldwide, the producers has came out with various methods in order to get optimum natural gas production from all the reservoirs. It is normal that in a gas well, there will be water or hydrocarbon condensate produced along together with the gas. It is noticeable that once the gas wells become matured, the formation pressures will decrease by time and as a result, the velocities or gas rate will decrease. This situation will then gradually causes the liquids to accumulate in the well as the gas do not have sufficient energy to push the liquids out. In other word, gas rate cannot overcome the gas critical (minimum) flow rate. When this continues to happen, a problem arises which is the gas well will be loaded by the liquids. Numbers of techniques done by the operators to overcome the problem and they are divided mainly into two types which are mechanical and chemical methods. However, the mechanical types of treatments usually need high expenditure. Majority of operators found out that the gas well deliquification by chemical mean is cheaper. For the chemical methods, one of it is by injecting the foamers or surfactant into the well. By decreasing the surface tensions and density of the fluids, the chemicals will lower the gas critical (minimum) flow rate and help the liquids to be produced out together with the gas. So, this project is carried out to find the best recipe of surfactant that can be used in deliquification of the gas wells. The ability of one of the anionic surfactant, named Sodium Lauryl Sulphate makes this chemical to be the main content of the surfactant recipe used in this project. The additives for the recipe include Sodium Chloride and Calcium Chloride. The modified ASTM D-892 test is used as the test in this project to find that suitable recipe of surfactant which can be the solution for the problem raised. At the end of the project, the best recipe of the surfactant is proposed which can effectively deliquify the water loaded in the gas wells.