New Software Release

Product overview

Fit-for-purpose modern production systems ensure that fluids are cost-effectively transported with the highest possible safety from the reservoir to the processing facilities. Harsh environments such
as deepwater fields with complex infrastructure or large-scale onshore developments pose many additional challenges that must be addressed by the production system design. The ability to accurately simulate such a broad range of scenarios and conditions has established the PIPESIM steady-state multiphase flow simulator as the industry’s leading tool for production system design.

Once production systems are brought into operation, the ability to ensure optimal production is critical to achieving the maximum economic potential of the asset. The PIPESIM simulator provides a comprehensive set of workflows ranging from candidate well selection for workovers to identification and mitigation of flow assurance challenges to online optimization of the complete system.

The modernized user interface (UI) delivers a step change in user experience, enabling users to build models more quickly and focus on results. The ability to work within one application and switch between well-centric or network-centric application layouts simplifies the modeling of the entire production system.

From early field development and all the way to production operations, the PIPESIM simulator enables production optimization over the complete life cycle by accessing the latest targeted science to address flow assurance challenges.

PIPESIM 2021.1 will be available soon within the Petrotechnical Suite in the DELFI cognitive E&P environment.

Learn more about PIPESIM

Release updates

Corrosion model from Trusted Pipeline Advisor (TPA)

PIPESIM 2021.1 includes the TPA corrosion model, developed by Trusted Pipeline Advisor. 
The TPA corrosion model predicts the baseline corrosion rate on a revision of the original de Waard model (1991), which is different from the de Waard (1995) model available in the PIPESIM simulator. The model considers the pipeline operational running time as well as the presence of oxygen, bacteria, corrosion damage, and evidence of black powder or debris. It works best by use of three-phase mechanistic models such as OLGA-S, TUFFP, or LEDA, because of their capability to define the transport properties of the water phase separate from the oil and gas phases. The TPA corrosion model is practically used for surface pipelines with pipe inclinations less than 60°. 

New profile output variables include:

• Corrosion pit rate: rate of pipeline material loss due to corrosion, accounting for the severity of regional stagnant water accumulations that contribute to isolated pitting corrosion damage along the pipeline. 
• Corrosion cumulative loss: accumulated loss of pipe material due to corrosion during pipe running time.

New PIPESIM 2021.1 Python Tool Kit environment

The PIPESIM 2021.1 Python Tool Kit (PTK) comes with a new distribution package from Anaconda®. With this package, we enable engineers, data scientists, and software engineers across the oil and gas industry to automate domain workflows leveraging the PIPESIM steady-stage multiphase flow simulator. With PIPESIM 2021.1 and Anaconda together, operators are building high-value operational digital twins to optimize their flow assurance strategies.

The installation of PTK does not include a code editor. We recommend downloading and installing VS Code, which is a popular open-source code editor by Microsoft® with a rich ecosystem of extensions. The PTK installer includes VSCodium, which is a freely licensed binary distribution of VS Code, which can be used as an alternative. 

The PIPESIM 2021.1 PTK supports these additional PIPESIM simulator functionalities: 

• nodal analysis sensitivity 
• VFP tables 
• rate constraints in the Network simulation task 
• inflow performance relationship (IPR) curve points 
• message format language (MFL) and pivot stickfigure (PVT) files 
• heat transfer calculation for vertical wells
• heat transfer between a well and its surroundings varies with time. The well exchanges energy with the formation—that is, heating it up or cooling it down—until the formation is at the same temperature as the well. The Ramey (1962) model determines the ground heat transfer coefficient (hg), which is used to predict fluid temperature changes along the wellbore, as function of the time the well has been operating. 

Vogel water cut correction (composite IPR model) 

To include the effects of gas break out, the Productivity index, Pseudo steady state, and Transient IPRs for liquid inflow in PIPESIM 2021.1 can be modified to use variants of the Vogel's equation below the bubblepoint. PIPESIM 2021.1 introduces the Vogel water cut correction, which reduces the effect of gas fraction on the IPR as the water fraction increases. The Vogel water cut correction is based on a composite IPR model, which combines the Vogel's equation with a linear water productivity considering oil and water fractions. 

Gas lift multipointing in Nodal Analysis and Data Comparison tasks 

In PIPESIM 2021.1, the option to determine if lift gas is injected through several valves (multipointing) is available also for the Nodal Analysis and Data Comparison tasks. For the Nodal analysis task, the option is only available for the fixed injection pressure diagnostic type. The option takes into consideration the surface injection pressure and temperature, injection rate, frictional pressure gradient in the annulus, and possible throttling of the gas lift valves. 

Valve Performance Clearinghouse™ in Data Comparison task 

PIPESIM 2021.1 offers an option for members of Valve Performance Clearinghouse™ (VPC). Use of the VPC database for an injection valve system is available also for the Data Comparison task in PIPESIM 2021.1. The VPC gas lift valve catalog is owned by Louisiana State University (LSU). The full catalog includes valves from several manufacturers, and you need to contact LSU for access. 

Upgrade to Multiflash 7.1

 PIPESIM 2021.1 comes with Multiflash 7.1 installed by default. The new version incorporates all the changes included in versions 6.2 and 7.0. Please refer to the Multiflash UI for more details.

Users

The product is suitable for use by production, process, and flow assurance engineers and those involved in multiphase flow simulation.