Well start-up presents particular challenges on high-pressure dry-tree well platforms in terms of low-temperature management. As mitigation, topsides pressurisation from downstream systems can be considered. This presents challenges should pressurisation be performed from multiphase systems.
This case study presents a faster and less rigorous simulation methodology developed to predict the thermo-hydraulic and compositional behaviour of topsides repressurisation from a multiphase system.
The results were verified by comparison to slower, higher fidelity compositional modelling techniques, which illustrated good agreement for topsides minimum temperature and liquid carry-over predictions. High-level validation was investigated via computational fluid dynamics CFD, empirical and field data.
