Oil & Gas Research
Open Access

Research Article

Enhanced Gas Lift Valve Performance for Sharp Edged Seat using Larger Ball Sizes

Fathi Elldakli^*, Mohamed S¹ and Mehdi SH²

¹University of Houston

²Texas Tech University

*Corresponding Author:

Fathi Elldakli
Petroleum Engineering
Texas Tech University
Texas, USA
Tel: + 806 319-2641
E-mail: fathi.elldakli@ttu.edu

Received Date: July 24, 2017; Accepted Date: July 28, 2017; Published Date: August 07, 2017

Citation: Elldakli F, Mohamed S, Mehdi SH (2017) Enhanced Gas Lift Valve Performance for Sharp Edged Seat using Larger Ball Sizes. Oil Gas Res 3: 143. doi: 10.4172/2472-0518.1000143

Copyright: © 2017 Elldakli F, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Theoretically, each Sharp Edged Seat has fully open stem travel based on the port and ball diameters. Gas lift valve 1.5” has 6 different port diameters (3/16”, ¼”, 5/16”, 3/8”, 7/16” and ½”). For each port the ball diameter is usually larger than the port diameter by 1/16”. Laboratory testing for sharp edged seats showed that the actual flow area is less than theoretically calculated area resulting from the bellows stacking before the stem reaches the fully open. Consequently, the valve stem restricts the flow and the flow rate through the valve declines. The purpose of this work is to examine the possibility of improving the efficiency of the gas lift valve by using larger ball size than conventionally used. For each port, different ball sizes were tested at different stem positions for the same condition (Injection pressure & Temperature). Results obtained from benchmark test displayed increasing in the flow rate as the ball size increases at the same stem travel.

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