Abstract
Gas injection is a very popular artificial lift method, at present a very high percentage of wells produce under this mechanism, hence it is very important to understand all operational and practical effects that are associated when an oil well is producing under gas-lift. Its optimization is critical to maximize oil production using the optimum amount of gas required and to justify the use of this technology as nowadays other artificial lift methods are very efficient too. Although, commercial softwares can simulate a gas-lifted well, all of them consider steady-state conditions, however the injection of gas through orifices or valves is a totally dynamic situation1 .
This paper shows some real examples where the use of a dynamic simulator was necessary to understand both well behavior and model simulation specifically when trying to optimize wells producing under unstable conditions.
The generation of realistic performance curves under those circumstances becomes critical, as they are the bases of any gas-lift optimization project as shown in this paper.
