Hydrogen, clean, efficient and zero-carbon, is seen as a most promising energy source. The use of existing gas pipelines for hydrogen–natural gas transportation is considered to be an effective way to achieve long-distance, large-scale, efficient, and economical hydrogen transportation. However, the pipelines for hydrogen–natural gas transportation contain lots of impurities (e.g., CH4, high-pressure H2, H2S and CO2) and free water, which will inevitably lead to corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement. This paper presents a systematic review of research and an outlook for corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement in hydrogen–natural gas pipeline transportation. The results show that gas-phase hydrogen charging is suitable for hydrogen–natural gas transportation, but this technique lacks technical standards. By contrast, the liquid-phase hydrogen charging technique is more mature but has large deviation from the engineering reality. In the hydrogen–natural gas transportation pipelines, corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement are synergetic and competitive, but the failure mechanism and change law when corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement coexist remain unclear, which need to be further clarified by experiments. The failure mechanism is believed to be mainly sensitive to three key factors, i.e., the H2S/CO2 partial pressure ratio, the hydrogen blending ratio, and material strength. The increase of the three factors will make the pipeline materials more corrosive and more sensitive to hydrogen embrittlement. The research findings can be used as a reference for research and development of long-distance hydrogen–natural gas transportation technology and will drive the high-quality development of the hydrogen–natural gas blending industry.
The Sulige Gas Field in the Ordos Basin is the largest tight gas field in China, with proved reserves exceeding 2 x 1012 m3. As the main contributor to gas production in PetroChina Changqing Oilfield Company, The Sulige Gas Field is in the stage of stable production. Maximizing the stable production period is a focus and challenge for the gas field now. To address a series of problems influencing the efficient development of Sulige gas field, such as large-scale remaining gas reserves between wells/layers and low ratio of employed reserves, the main technologies for enhanced gas recovery (EGR) of tight gas reservoirs were developed by multidisciplinary research with respect to development geology, reservoir engineering, drilling and production process, and surface gathering and transportation. Experiments were conducted on reservoir description and remaining gas characterization, well pattern thickening optimization, vertical well separate-layer fracturing, horizontal-well multi-stage multi-cluster volume fracturing for their improvement and upgrading. The orientation of EGR for tight gas reservoirs is proposed. The following results are obtained. First, well pattern thickening optimization is the most important EGR method, which can increase the recovery rate by more than 6%. Second, based on continuous upgrading and promotion, either of reservoir stimulation technology and drainage gas recovery technology can increase the recovery rate by more than 2%. The gathering and transportation technology which further reduces the wellhead pressure can increase the recovery rate by about 1.5%. Third, the EGR technology should be oriented to maximize the quantity of employed reserves, especially by way of new technologies such as fine remaining gas characterization, well pattern/type optimization, crosslayer fracturing of a multi-thin-layer reservoir by horizontal wells, intelligent drainage gas recovery, and multi-stage pressurization. It is concluded that the development of key EGR technologies will help increase the recovery rate of The Sulige Gas Field by 10%-15%, and will provide an effective support for The Sulige Gas Field to maintain the production at 300 x 108 m3/a for a long term and for the Changqing gas province to increase the production to 500 x 108 m3/a, which will ultimately ensure the national energy security. (c) 2023 Sichuan Petroleum Administration. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communication Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Engineering practices show that installation of oscillators on drillstring can effectively reduce the axial drag and inhibit stick-slip vibration in horizontal drilling. However, the mechanisms of axial drag reduction and stick-slip vibration inhibition of oscillators have not been fully revealed, and there is a lack of effective optimization design methods of vibration parameters. To solve the above problems, the mechanical models of drillstring with drag reduction oscillators are firstly built, which include axial vibration model in sliding drilling mode and stick-slip vibration model in rotary drilling mode. The nonlinear relationship between friction force and velocity is considered in the mechanical models. Next step, the optimal design models of vibration parameters are estab-lished, in which the drag reduction efficiency and the stick-slip reduction efficiency are taken as the objective functions respectively, and drillstring fatigue, hydraulic loss and so on are the constraint conditions.The optimal design models are solved with orthogonal experimental design. Finally, the above models are applied to hori-zontal drilling engineering in Chinese Jimsar oilfield. The results show that oscillators can significantly reduce the total friction forces on drillstring and keep a more stable weight on bit (WOB) in sliding drilling mode, and inhibit the stick-slip vibration of drillstring and fluc-tuation amplitude of WOB. The primary factors affecting the drag reduction efficiency in sliding drilling mode are vibration amplitude and number of oscillators, whereas the primary factors affecting stick-slip reduction efficiency in rotary drilling mode are rotary speed of drillstring and WOB. It is recommended to install 3 os-cillators on bottom hole assembly of drillstring with vibration amplitude of 40 kN, rotary speed of 162 r/min, and the average WOB of 171 kN in case study, and then the drag reduction efficiency and the stick-slip reduction efficiency are respectively 37.47% and 74%.
The transient simulation technology of natural gas pipeline networks plays an increasingly prominent role in the scheduling management of natural gas pipeline network system. The increasingly large and complex natural gas pipeline network requires more strictly on the calculation efficiency of transient simulation. To this end, this paper proposes a new method for the transient simulation of natural gas pipeline networks based on fracture-dimension-reduction algorithm. Firstly, a pipeline network model is abstracted into a station model, inter-station pipeline network model and connection node model. Secondly, the pressure at the connection node connecting the station and the inter-station pipeline network is used as the basic variable to solve the general solution of the flow rate at the connection node, reconstruct the simulation model of the inter-station pipeline network, and reduce the equation set dimension of the inter-station pipeline network model. Thirdly, the transient simulation model of the natural gas pipeline network system is constructed based on the reconstructed simulation model of the inter-station pipeline network. Finally, the calculation accuracy and efficiency of the proposed algorithm are compared and analyzed for the two working conditions of slow change of compressor speed and rapid shutdown of the compressor. And the following research results are obtained. First, the fracture-dimension-reduction algorithm has a high calculation accuracy, and the relative error of compressor outlet pressure and user pressure is less than 0.1%. Second, the calculation efficiency of the new fracture-dimension-reduction algorithm is high, and compared with the nonlinear equations solving method, the speed-up ratios under the two conditions are high up to 17.3 and 12.2 respectively. Third, the speed-up ratio of the fracture-dimension-reduction algorithm is linearly related to the equation set dimension of the transient simulation model of the pipeline network system. The larger the equation set dimension, the higher the speed-up ratio, which means the more complex the pipeline network model, the more remarkable the calculation speed-up effect. In conclusion, this new method improves the calculation speed while keeping the calculation accuracy, which is of great theoretical value and reference significance for improving the calculation efficiency of the transient simulation of complex natural gas pipeline network systems.
Research on the enhanced gas recovery (EGR) technology is urgently needed in most of China's major gas fields due to low recovery in their late development stages. To promote progress in ERG theory and technology, this paper establishes a unified and universal model for gas recovery evaluation, analyzes the key factors affecting the gas recovery, and expects the prospect of EGR. The results are obtained as follows. First, the production degree of reserves, pressure drawdown sweep efficiency and pressure depletion efficiency are key factors affecting the gas recovery, which is the product of the coefficients corresponding to these factors. Second, according to the development practice of Anyue Longwangmiao gas reservoir, Kela 2 gas field, Sulige gas field and Southern Sichuan shale gas, it is estimated that the recovery of conventional water-driven gas reservoirs and unconventional gas reservoirs (incl. tight gas and shale gas) can be improved by 6–15 percentage points by increasing the production degree of reserves, the pressure drawdown sweep efficiency and pressure depletion efficiency. Third, it is proposed that clarifying the EGR mechanism, developing new EGR methods, and promoting the field test of EGR technologies are directions for theoretical and technical researches. The study results provide a theoretical foundation for EGR. The EGR methodologies for different types of gas reservoirs provide technical support for improving gas recovery and stable production of existing gas fields, promote healthy and rapid development of natural gas industry in China and provide guidance for guaranteeing national energy security.
