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Christmas tree (oil well)
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In petroleum and natural gas extraction, a
Christmas tree, or "tree", is an assembly of
valves, casing spools, and fittings used to
regulate the flow of pipes in an oil well, gas
well, water injection well, water disposal well,
gas injection well, condensate well and other
types of wells.
Oil well Christmas tree
Overview …
The first primitive Christmas Tree was used by
the Hamill Brothers to bring Spindletop under
control. It consisted of a T-valve, with a 6-inch
and 8-inch valve on the vertical pipe, and a 6-
inch valve on the horizontal pipe. The vertical
valve was closed first, and then the valve to the
horizontal pipe.[1][2]
Christmas trees are used on both surface and
subsea wells. It is common to identify the type
of tree as either "subsea tree" or "surface
tree". Each of these classifications has a
number of variations. Examples of subsea
include conventional, dual bore, mono bore,
TFL (through flow line), horizontal, mudline,
mudline horizontal, side valve, and TBT
(through-bore tree) trees. The deepest
installed subsea tree is in the Gulf of Mexico at
approximately 9,000 feet (2,700 m). (Current
technical limits are up to around 3000 metres
and working temperatures of -50 °F to 350 °F
with a pressure of up to 15,000 psi.)
The primary function of a tree is to control the
flow, usually oil or gas, out of the well. (A tree
may also be used to control the injection of gas
or water into a non-producing well in order to
enhance production rates of oil from other
wells.) When the well and facilities are ready to
produce and receive oil or gas, tree valves are
opened and the formation fluids are allowed to
go through a flow line. This leads to a
processing facility, storage depot and/or other
pipeline eventually leading to a refinery or
distribution center (for gas). Flow lines on
subsea wells usually lead to a fixed or floating
production platform or to a storage ship or
barge, known as a floating storage offloading
vessel (FSO), or floating processing unit (FPU),
or floating production, storage and offloading
vessel (FPSO).
A tree often provides numerous additional
functions including chemical injection points,
well intervention means, pressure relief means,
monitoring points (such as pressure,
temperature, corrosion, erosion, sand
detection, flow rate, flow composition, valve
and choke position feedback), and connection
points for devices such as down hole pressure
and temperature transducers (DHPT). On
producing wells, chemicals or alcohols or oil
distillates may be injected to preclude
production problems (such as blockages).
Functionality may be extended further by using
the control system on a subsea tree to monitor,
measure, and react to sensor outputs on the
tree or even down the well bore. The control
system attached to the tree controls the
downhole safety valve (SCSSV, DHSV, SSSV)
while the tree acts as an attachment and
conduit means of the control system to the
downhole safety valve.
Tree complexity has increased over the last
few decades. They are frequently
manufactured from blocks of steel containing
multiple valves rather than being assembled
from individual flanged components. This is
especially true in subsea applications where
the resemblance to Christmas trees no longer
exists given the frame and support systems
into which the main valve block is integrated.
Note that a tree and wellhead are separate
pieces of equipment not to be mistaken as the
same piece. The Christmas tree is installed on
top of the wellhead. A wellhead is used without
a Christmas tree during drilling operations, and
also for riser tie-back situations that later
would have a tree installed at riser top. Wells
being produced with rod pumps (pump jacks,
nodding donkeys, grasshopper pumps, and so
on) frequently do not utilize any tree owing the
absence of a pressure-containment
requirement.
Valves …
Subsea and surface trees have a large variety
of valve configurations and combinations of
manual and/or actuated (hydraulic or
pneumatic) valves. Examples are identified in
API Specifications 6A nd 17D.
A basic surface tree consists of two or three
manual valves (usually gate valves because of
their flow characteristics, i.e. low restriction to
the flow of fluid when fully open).
A typical sophisticated surface tree will have at
least four or five valves, normally arranged in a
crucifix type pattern (hence the endurance of
the term "Christmas tree"). The two lower
valves are called the master valves (upper and
lower respectively). Master valves are normally
in the fully open position and are never opened
or closed when the well is flowing (except in an
emergency) to prevent erosion of the valve
sealing surfaces. The lower master valve will
normally be manually operated, while the
upper master valve is often hydraulically
actuated, allowing it to be used as a means of
remotely shutting in the well in the event of
emergency. An actuated wing valve is normally
used to shut in the well when flowing, thus
preserving the master valves for positive shut
off for maintenance purposes. Hydraulic
operated wing valves are usually built to be fail
safe closed, meaning they require active
hydraulic pressure to stay open. This feature
means that if control fluid fails the well will
automatically shut itself in without operator
action.
The right hand valve is often called the flow
wing valve or the production wing valve,
because it is in the flowpath the hydrocarbons
take to production facilities (or the path water
or gas will take from production to the well in
the case of injection wells).
The left hand valve is often called the kill wing
valve (KWV). It is primarily used for injection of
fluids such as corrosion inhibitors or methanol
to prevent hydrate formation. In the North Sea,
it is called the non-active side arm (NASA). It is
typically manually operated.
The valve at the top is called the swab valve
and lies in the path used for well interventions
like wireline and coiled tubing. For such
operations, a lubricator is rigged up onto the
top of the tree and the wire or coil is lowered
through the lubricator, past the swab valve and
into the well. This valve is typically manually
operated.
Some trees have a second swab valve, the two
arranged one on top of the other. The intention
is to allow rigging down equipment from the
top of the tree with the well flowing while still
preserving the two-barrier rule. With only a
single swab valve, the upper master valve is
usually closed to act as the second barrier,
forcing the well to be shut in for a day during
rig down operations. However, avoiding
delaying production for a day is usually too
small a gain to be worth the extra expense of
having a Christmas tree with a second swab
valve.
Subsea trees are available in either vertical or
horizontal configurations with further speciality
available such as dual bore, monobore,
concentric, drill-through, mudline,
guidelineless or guideline. Subsea trees may
range in size and weight from a few tons to
approximately 70 tons for high pressure,
deepwater (>3000 feet) guidelineless
applications. Subsea trees contain many
additional valves and accessories compared to
surface trees. Typically a subsea tree would
have a choke (permits control of flow), a
flowline connection interface (hub, flange or
other connection), subsea control interface
(direct hydraulic, electro hydraulic, or electric)
and sensors for gathering data such as
pressure, temperature, sand flow, erosion,
multiphase flow, single phase flow such as
water or gas.
Surface and subsea
Christmas tree images …
See also
References
Last edited 7 months ago by Editguy9
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