Establishment and application of a remote automatic control platform for CBM production

Remote data monitoring has been applied in the production of CBM wells. It is necessary to realize remote regulating and automatic control on production systems of CBM wells as soon as possible, so that production cost can be reduced effectively and fine production of CBM wells can be improved. In this paper, remote production control technologies were designed based on production behaviors of CBM wells. And then, in light of the features of automatic monitoring instruments, automatic production of CBM wells was divided into four stages (i.e. before casing pressure occurring, casing pressure building, initial gas production and gas production). Finally, an automatic control program was developed and embedded into on-site control terminals after study was carried out on automatic control logics and methods of each production stage of CBM wells. It is for the first time that gas and water production of CBM wells are automatically regulated precisely and automatic CBM production modes are adopted with the linkage control of gas and water production. Based on this production network and remote control platform system, terminal operation is controlled and feedback according to the production orders which are set and delivered remotely. In this way, CBM well production is automatically controlled over long distance. Practical operation results in the Hancheng area, Shaanxi, shows that establishment and application of this automatic control platform contribute to the improvement of fine production of CBM wells and their continuous and stable production.