Upstream Oil and Gas Processes - From Wellhead to Pigging

Explore how the wellhead and Christmas tree connect the reservoir to surface processing, control pressure through isolation and choke devices, and support safe, cost-efficient field development plan.

Discover how the Christmas tree controls well flow from the lower master valve to the upper master valve, kill valve, and swab valve, enabling injections and safe isolation during maintenance.

Explore conventional well types—oil wells with associated gas, natural gas wells, and condensate wells—and understand gas liberation from oil, gas composition, and condensate separation.

Explain that oil density is 800–850 kg/m³ with heavier hydrocarbons, condensate is lighter (<800 kg/m³) and formed from natural gas condensation, with color differences influencing pricing via ISO barrel-factor calculations.

Explore manifolds and gathering, defining production and test manifolds as collector lines that consolidate wellhead outputs, connect to separators, and support periodic well testing.

Explore gravity separators that use density differences to separate gas from oil, with vertical or horizontal designs chosen by gas to oil ratio and space constraints in offshore platforms.

Explore how internal separator configurations optimize gas–liquid separation in vertical and horizontal separators using distributor or vane type inlet devices and demisting sections in Mysep simulations.

Learn how horizontal and vertical separators perform initial separation, featuring vane type inlet devices and demisting sections, with oil–water separation using a Bayer and three-phase operation.

Show that production and test separators share the same inlet design, but test separators add a flow meter at gas and liquid outlets to measure 24-hour gas and oil production.

discover how test separators measure production using Coriolis flow meters to obtain mass flow rate and calculate volume flow rate from density.

Explain why gas compression is essential to raise pressure and move gas through long offshore and onshore pipelines. Mention the Joule–Thomson effect and its modest temperature changes in HYSYS simulations.

Compress gas and run dehydration units to remove water, producing dry gas for pipelines, using glycol drying to prevent hydrate formation and addressing onshore and offshore processing.

Learn how metering measures daily gas and oil production using venturi differential pressure meters and Coriolis meters, with placement options from platform exits to midstream pipelines and tanker loading.

Moving to export, the lecture discusses pipeline sizing considerations, focusing on erosion velocity and pressure drop criteria to ensure the product runs smoothly per design.

Explore flow assurance and pipeline integrity in offshore oil and gas, focusing on corrosion control, internal and external factors, inhibitors, erosion limits, and velocity management per Norsok and API standards.

navigate operational flow assurance, covering slugging and slack flow, slug catchers, and controlled pressure reduction to prevent gas hydrate formation and paraffin or asphaltene deposits.

Explore how emulsions, hydrates, scales, and waxes cause blockages and how chemical treatments—emulsion breakers, triethylene glycol, monoethylene glycol, methanol—along with picking and scale inhibitors prevent them.

Learn how to deploy a pig in a pipeline using pressure difference, from launcher to receiver, to periodically remove blockages with mechanical and foam pigs.

Move the pig by sending gas or oil behind it and use bypass holes to create jetting, cleaning the pipeline by removing liquids, sand, and blockages.

Analyze emulsion and slugging issues that hinder oil and water separation, and learn optimal injection points for methanol, hydrate inhibitors, scale inhibitors, and corrosion inhibitors to protect pipelines.