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What is WinGLUE?

Analysis + Evaluation + Design + Optimization   =   Surveillance

WinGLUE™ Gas Lift User Environment for Windows
WinGLUE is Gas Lift Software:
WinGLUE is a powerful, ground-breaking gas-lift well surveillance software tool, developed and field-proven by AppSmiths and Shell over the last 5 years. This tool is now available commercially for the first time.
What do we mean by gas lift surveillance?
Gas-lift design is easy. It's only after the wells are operating that gas lift gets tricky. Any operator can spot a well that is not producing. But even trained operators and engineers have trouble finding wells that are producing sub-optimally.

Gas lift hides its inefficiencies! Surveillance of a gas-lifted field starts by taking whatever information is available for a well and defining a probable scenario (or two) for its current operation -- that's the Analysis phase. Then, using this scenario, Evaluating what benefits might be gained by design or operational changes. In some cases, the Design phase follows where changes to the installed valves or other gas lift facilities are designed. Surveillance progresses on a well-by-well basis. Finally, because a gas lift field must be considered a system, the distribution of gas amongst the wells must be Optimized. Then the surveillance loop is repeated. Effective surveillance is a continual process.

The key to successful surveillance is being able to track changes in the wells over time, comparing well tests and pressure survey information as the well changes. WinGLUE can do this for even large numbers of wells, multiple fields, and multiple users.

WinGLUE was designed to support the surveillance of gas-lifted fields in Shell.

What do we mean by 'field-proven'?
WinGLUE was designed for surveillance by surveillance teams. Its functionality was dervived from the collective knowledge within Shell; experience from Shell’s Gulf of Mexico Gas Lift Optimisation Team and enhanced with experience in Petroleum Development Oman.

WinGLUE has over 200 registered users within Shell. It is being successfully used in 10 Shell operating companies.

For example: In Shell Oil in the Gulf of Mexico, surveillance using WinGLUE produced a 10x return on investment in first six months.

PDO in Oman gained 12.5% net oil, UTC of US$0.30/bbl, plus US$1 MM CAPEX savings.

Shell Gabon gained 18% in two rounds of optimisation.
What do we mean by ground-breaking?
WinGLUE contains special surveillance features not found in other tools, such as: field level reporting, valve throughput calculations, valve open/closing analysis, flowing and static pressure survey analysis, gas-lift stability analysis, and the develpment continues...

Surveillance teams can share data and work together using WinGLUE’s multi-user/multi-database capability. Data is stored in a commercial database (Oracle on a network server or Watcom locally) and can be exchanged with other applications or queried using commercial software tools (such as MS Access or MS Query). Data may be exchanged at the well or field level between any databases on any supported hardware platform. This makes it possible for teams to share data and for one or a few users to be 'master' users, reviewing the work of others before allowing database changes to be made. Administration of access to the database is both easy and practical.

WinGLUE runs under Windows 9x, NT 4.0, 2000 and XP.

Many other design packages are lacking in the most important and difficult design scenario -- design for mandrels in place. WinGLUE has a fully flexible design capability for existing mandrel spacings including the ability to dummy any mandrel in the design.

Other optimisation packages miss important practical limitations in gas lift. Because they use a curve fit of the data, they may not correctly detect/handle discontinuities caused by insufficient differential at lower injection rates. This leads to optimisations where the minimum stable rates cannot be predicted or enforced. WinGLUE overcomes these limitations by predicting the onset of instability and handling performance curve discontinuities through the use of a fast algorithm which finds the optimum distribution without resorting to curve-fits.

WinGLUE can incorporate and link to the best technology. Its will soon incorporate cutting-edge technology such as Shell’s dynamic gas lift well simulator. It is already linked in some installations to a real time monitoring and control system for gas lift wells (Shell’s SOFS/RTAP system, also available commercially).

And now, WinGLUE is being linked to Baker Jardine and Associate's PipeSim suite of well, network and reservoir modeling software. Once completed in late-1997, WinGLUE will be able to use PipeSim GOAL, a gas lift distribution optimiser that accounts for surface networks and their constraints. PipeSim will be inherit WinGLUE's muli-user/multi-database capabilities.

Why should Shell make WinGLUE available commercially? Won't they lose their competitive edge?

Shell believes that sharing WinGLUE will only make it better as new enhancements suggested by other users are included. The implementation of proper gas lift surveillance is the true competitive edge. Shell believes it already has the edge in implementation with its world-wide experience and real-time systems -- and intends to maintain that edge.


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