Predictions on temperatures of high-pressure gas/water/MEG mixtures flowing through wellhead chokes

The co-existence of gas, water, and monoethylene glycol (MEG) is common in produced fluids of high-pressure gas wells. Accurate predictions on the temperature changes during the choking process are essential for the design and operation of the choke valve. This paper presents an efficient multiphase isenthalpic flash method based on the cubic-plus-association equation of state (CPA EOS) to calculate the choke temperatures. In comparison with the traditional isenthalpic flash algorithm, this new method accounts for the self- and cross-association between polar water and MEG molecules, yielding more accurate enthalpy calculation results and multiphase component distributions for fluids containing water and MEG. The proposed model is validated by field test data with pressures from 8.68 MPa to 119.3 MPa. The average absolute deviations between the calculated choke temperatures and measured values are less than 1.6 °C even for vapor-liquid-aqueous three-phase mixtures at various pressures. Moreover, case studies show that accounting for the association between polar water/MEG molecules contributes to accurate predictions on choke temperatures. At high pressures, the CPA EOS tends to give higher choke temperatures in comparison with those calculated based on the traditional SRK-Peneloux EOS. In contrast, the CPA EOS tends to yield lower temperatures at low pressures.