Efficient estimation of gas–liquid ratios for plunger lift systems in petroleum production operations

Plunger lift systems have the benefits of increasing production, as well as significantly decreasing methane emissions associated with blowdown operations. In other words, plunger lift is accounted one of the most widely accepted and economical artificial lift techniques, particularly in gas/oil wells with high gas–liquid-ratio (GLR). Hence, it is necessary to present a reliable and efficient method for predicting the applicability performance of plunger lift system. In this communication, a simple method is introduced for the calculation of the minimum required gas–liquid ratios as a function of the net operating pressure and well depth. Using this dedicated method, satisfactory results are obtained and are quantified by the following statistical error factors: average absolute relative deviations of the predicted gas-liquid ratio from existing literature-reported values: 16.33 %, and R-squared: 0.968. Finally, the method proposed in this study is compared with an intelligent method. Our results show that the method proposed in this study is more accurate and applicable than the comparative intelligent technique.