Applicability of Sachdeva's Choke Flow Model in Southwest Louisiana Gas Condensate Wells

Sachdeva's multiphase choke flow model has capabilities of predicting critical-subcritical boundary and liquid and gas flow rates for given upstream and downstream pressures. Although this model was shown to be accurate by Sachdeva et al. in their original paper using laboratory and field data, inaccuracy of the model has been found in other field applications. It is highly desirable for production engineers to find the applicability of this model when it is applied to gas condensate wells. In this study, the accuracy of the Sachdeva's choke model was evaluated using data from oil and gas condensate wells in Southwest Louisiana. Comparisons of the results from the model and field measurements indicate that Sachdeva's choke model generally under-estimates gas and condensate flow rates. Based on measurements from 239 gas condensate wells it was found that the model under-estimates gas rate and liquid rate by as much as 40% and 60%, respectively. The model also failed to calculate mass flow rates for 48 condensate wells where relatively low-pressure differentials at chokes and high-flow rates were observed. The investigation further went on to improve the performance of Sachdeva's choke model. It was found that the error of the model could be minimized using different values of choke discharge coefficient (C _D). For gas condensate wells, the error in gas flow rate calculations can be minimized using C _D = 1.073. However, the error in liquid flow rate calculations for condensate wells is minimum when C _D = 1.532.