A revised model for compressor design and scheduling in gas-lifted oil fields

Abstract

The design and real-time scheduling of lift-gas compressors in oil fields entails solving a mixed-integer non-linear problem that generalizes the facility location problem. This article presents a revised formulation that represents the constraints on compressor discharge pressure as a family of linear inequalities, which is shown to be tighter than a previous formulation. Mixed-integer linear approximations for these formulations are obtained by piecewise linearizing the non-linear functions, using binary variables and specially ordered set variables. Valid inequalities for compressor capacity along with separation and lifting procedures are proposed. The article also presents computational experiments comparing the formulations and evaluating the impact of cutting plane generation on solution speed.

Keywords:

• Facility location
• mixed-integer non-linear programming
• piecewise linearization
• scheduling
• oil fields