Model Predictive Control with quality requirements on petroleum production platforms

In this work, the potential of model predictive control (MPC) on an offshore production unit starting from the well up to the processing plant was investigated. Analyses of control strategies through computer simulation were performed using mathematical models of wells, flow lines and separation plant. The goal is to control the gas-lift and ensure quality specifications of products of primary processing of petroleum. Improvements are made in models of wells and three-phase separator found in the literature to make them capable of representing physical behavior important for the analysis of control, namely, the head loss by friction in the flow and the variation of the separation efficiencies depending on the level of the three-phase separator interface are also described. Credible scenarios were analyzed, showing the satisfactory behavior of the proposed control strategy.