Hydraulic errors are expensive and durable. An undersized flowline permanently reduces field deliverability by imposing backpressure at the wellhead that no amount of downstream optimisation can remove. An oversized line increases capital cost, produces low velocities that allow water and solids to drop out, and can create slugging behaviour the facility was never designed to handle. Both errors survive for the life of the asset because the pipe has been laid.

Multiphase flow is where most upstream hydraulic difficulty concentrates. Oil, gas and water flowing together in a line do not behave as a homogeneous fluid. Flow regime changes with rate, pressure, inclination and fluid properties, liquid holdup varies with regime, and pressure drop can behave counter-intuitively as production rate falls. Terrain-induced slugging in undulating flowlines and severe slugging in risers can deliver liquid volumes far in excess of the average rate, causing separator carryover, compressor trips and facility upsets that appear to have no cause until the hydraulics are understood.

Transient hydraulics adds a further class of problem. Rapid valve closure produces pressure surges that can exceed design pressure. Pump trips generate low pressure waves and column separation. Start-up and shutdown sequences displace liquid inventory in ways steady-state calculations do not predict. These effects damage equipment and lift relief valves, and they are only avoidable if they are anticipated at design and understood in operations.

Finally, hydraulic criteria govern integrity. Erosional velocity limits under API RP 14E and its successors, minimum velocities for solids and liquid transport, flow-induced vibration thresholds and acoustic limits all define an operating window that is narrower than a simple capacity calculation suggests. Working inside that window requires the calculations covered in this training.

By the end of this training, participants will be able to:

• Apply fluid property relationships for oil, gas and water to hydraulic calculations at process conditions
• Calculate single-phase liquid pressure drop using the Darcy-Weisbach equation, friction factor correlations and fitting resistance methods
• Compute compressible gas flow and pressure drop in pipelines using the appropriate flow equations and identify choked flow conditions
• Identify multiphase flow regimes, estimate liquid holdup and evaluate multiphase pressure drop in flowlines and risers
• Construct system curves and determine pump and compressor operating points, including NPSH margin and surge limits
• Size control valves, chokes and restriction orifices for defined process duties
• Build a pressure traverse across a production network from wellhead to export and identify hydraulic bottlenecks
• Evaluate transient events including surge, water hammer, slug arrival and pump trip, and specify appropriate mitigation
• Apply erosional velocity, minimum velocity and vibration criteria to line sizing and operating limit decisions

The training combines derivation of the governing relationships with sustained numerical work, so that participants leave able to perform the calculations rather than only describe them. Each method is introduced with its assumptions and validity limits, applied to worked examples using representative oil and gas fluid properties and geometries, and then tested against field data showing where simple methods succeed and where they fail. Multiphase flow behaviour is presented through flow regime maps, holdup data and field cases of slugging and carryover. The training progresses from individual components to full network analysis, and participants are encouraged to bring line sizing or pressure drop problems from their own assets for group work.

Organisations sending participants to this training will:

• Improve the technical quality of in-house line sizing, hydraulic checks and debottlenecking studies
• Reduce production loss caused by hydraulic bottlenecks that were not identified during design or modification
• Strengthen review of contractor hydraulic deliverables, flow assurance reports and simulation results
• Reduce equipment damage and relief events caused by unanticipated surge, slugging and transient conditions
• Improve facility operating decisions by giving operations staff a quantitative understanding of pressure behaviour across the system
• Support better capital decisions on line sizing, pump and compressor selection and export system capacity

Participants will:

• Perform hydraulic calculations for liquid, gas and multiphase systems with confidence in the assumptions used
• Explain why pressure behaves as it does at any point in a production system
• Recognise slugging, carryover, cavitation, surge and erosion problems from their hydraulic signature
• Size lines, valves, chokes and orifices against correct velocity and pressure criteria
• Interpret and challenge hydraulic simulation results rather than accepting them without scrutiny
• Build quantitative capability that supports movement into facilities engineering, flow assurance or process design roles

• Facilities, process and production engineers
• Pipeline, flow assurance and subsea engineers
• Petroleum and reservoir engineers working on production system performance
• Project and design engineers responsible for piping and equipment sizing
• Operations engineers and supervisors managing facility capacity and constraints
• Mechanical and rotating equipment engineers dealing with pump and compressor systems
• Graduate engineers entering facilities, pipeline or production engineering roles

Upon successful completion of this training course, delegates will be awarded an official Certificate of Completion issued by the Petroleum Engineers Association (PEA), an ISO 9001:2015 certified training organization. The certificate carries 10 Credits and formally records the total learning hours completed.

Each certificate is signed by the Course Facilitator and the CEO of the Petroleum Engineers Association, and serves as verifiable proof of professional training that delegates can present to employers and professional bodies worldwide.