An Interactive 5-Day Training Course
Nodal Analysis & Well Performance (IPR/VLP)
Well inflow and outflow performance analysis course
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Duration
5 Days
Price
$ 4,000
Starting From
10 May 2027
Nodal Analysis & Well Performance (IPR/VLP)
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Nodal Analysis & Well Performance (IPR/VLP) - RE-NAWP-PEA27
| Code | Date | Time | Duration | Location | Currency | Early Bird Fee Per Person |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RE-NAWP-PEA27 | 10 - 14 May 2027 | 10 AM CST | 4 Hours Per Day |
Online |
USD |
4000 |
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Nodal Analysis & Well Performance (IPR/VLP)
This training covers well performance analysis using the nodal approach. It works through inflow performance relationships for oil and gas wells, multiphase flow and vertical lift performance calculation, nodal analysis construction and solution, tubing choke and completion sizing, artificial lift evaluation, sensitivity analysis, network coupling and the systematic diagnosis of wells producing below expectation.
Description
A well produces at the rate where what the reservoir can deliver equals what the tubing and surface system can take away. Nodal analysis makes that statement calculable by splitting the system at a chosen node, building an inflow curve on one side and an outflow curve on the other, and finding their intersection. The value of the method is not the operating point it predicts but the diagnosis it enables: it shows which side of the system is limiting, how much a change to either side would deliver, and therefore whether a stimulation, a tubing change, a choke change, a lift installation or a facility pressure reduction is the correct intervention.
This training develops both halves of the calculation. Inflow performance is covered for oil wells through productivity index, Vogel and composite relationships, and for gas wells through the backpressure and pseudo-pressure forms, together with skin, non-Darcy effects, completion geometry and horizontal well inflow. Multiphase flow in the wellbore is then developed, covering flow regimes, holdup, slip and the correlations and mechanistic models used to calculate pressure traverse, with attention to correlation selection and its consequences. Nodal analysis construction follows, with node selection, curve generation and sensitivity work. Tubing, choke and completion sizing are then addressed, followed by artificial lift evaluation, liquid loading in gas wells, network coupling and systematic diagnosis of underperformance.
The most useful question nodal analysis answers is which side is limiting. A well that responds strongly to a tubing size change is outflow limited, and stimulating it will deliver little. A well that responds strongly to a skin reduction is inflow limited, and changing the tubing will deliver little. Both interventions cost money, and choosing between them without the analysis is guesswork. Across a field with many wells, systematically identifying which are inflow limited and which are outflow limited directs intervention spend to where it will actually produce a return.
Correlation selection has more effect on the answer than most users appreciate. Multiphase pressure traverse correlations were developed from limited data sets under specific conditions, and applying one outside its range produces errors of tens of percent in calculated bottomhole pressure. That error propagates directly into the predicted operating point and into any conclusion drawn from it. Tuning correlations against measured flowing gradient surveys, where they exist, is what makes nodal analysis quantitative rather than indicative.
The reservoir side changes over time and the well side does not follow automatically. As reservoir pressure declines, water cut rises and gas-oil ratio changes, the inflow curve moves down and the outflow curve moves up, and the operating point moves toward the region where the well becomes unstable or stops flowing. Anticipating that transition determines when artificial lift must be installed, what capacity it needs and what tubing size will suit the well through the remainder of its life rather than only today.
Finally, wells do not operate in isolation. Wellhead pressure is set by the flowline, the manifold, the separator and everything downstream, and in a gathering network the wells interact through shared backpressure. A nodal analysis performed with a fixed wellhead pressure that the network cannot actually deliver will overstate the achievable rate, which is why network coupling matters for any field-level conclusion.
By the end of this training, participants will be able to:
- Construct inflow performance relationships for oil and gas wells under saturated and undersaturated conditions
- Quantify skin, its components and its effect on well deliverability
- Calculate multiphase pressure traverse and select appropriate correlations for the conditions
- Tune pressure traverse calculations against measured flowing gradient surveys
- Build nodal analysis solutions and identify whether a well is inflow or outflow limited
- Size tubing, chokes and completions for current and future well conditions
- Evaluate artificial lift requirement, timing and method selection using nodal analysis
- Diagnose liquid loading in gas wells and evaluate unloading options
- Couple well models with gathering network and facility constraints
- Diagnose underperforming wells systematically and identify the intervention that will work
Organisations sending participants to this training will:
- Direct intervention and stimulation spend toward wells where it will deliver production
- Avoid stimulation of outflow limited wells and tubing changes on inflow limited wells
- Improve tubing and completion sizing decisions for new and recompleted wells
- Improve artificial lift selection and installation timing
- Recover production from wells constrained by liquid loading or excessive backpressure
- Improve field level optimisation by accounting for network interaction between wells
Participants will:
- Build inflow and outflow curves and solve for the well operating point
- Identify the actual constraint on any producing well
- Select and tune pressure traverse correlations rather than accepting defaults
- Size tubing and completions for well life rather than current conditions
- Evaluate artificial lift options quantitatively
- Build a core production engineering skill applied daily on producing assets
- Production engineers and production technologists
- Reservoir engineers working on well deliverability and development planning
- Completion and well engineers sizing tubulars and completions
- Artificial lift engineers and specialists
- Operations engineers and supervisors managing well performance
- Well intervention engineers selecting candidates
- Graduate engineers entering production engineering roles
Module 1 - The Production System and Nodal Concept
- Production system from reservoir to separator as a pressure chain
- Pressure losses across each component
- Nodal analysis principle and node selection
- Inflow and outflow curve definitions
- Solution node at bottomhole, wellhead and other locations
- What the operating point represents and its limitations
- Diagnosing constraint location from curve shape
- Data required for a nodal analysis
- Applications: sizing, diagnosis, optimisation, forecasting
Module 2 - Inflow Performance for Oil Wells
- Radial flow equation and productivity index
- Straight line inflow performance for undersaturated oil
- Vogel relationship for saturated reservoirs
- Composite inflow performance below bubble point
- Standing, Fetkovich and other IPR formulations
- Effect of reservoir pressure decline on the inflow curve
- Effect of water cut on inflow performance
- Constructing IPR from well test data
- Multi-rate testing for IPR determination
- Future inflow performance prediction
Module 3 - Skin and Completion Effects
- Skin definition and its effect on productivity
- Skin components: damage, perforation, partial penetration, deviation, turbulence
- Damage skin mechanisms and their causes
- Perforation geometry, density, phasing and their skin contribution
- Gravel pack and sand control completion skin
- Rate dependent skin and non-Darcy flow
- Fracture stimulation and negative skin
- Horizontal well inflow and equivalent skin
- Determining skin from well test and production data
- Estimating the production gain from skin removal
Module 4 - Inflow Performance for Gas Wells
- Gas flow equation and pseudo-pressure formulation
- Backpressure equation and its coefficients
- Laminar-inertial-turbulent formulation and its coefficients
- Deliverability testing: flow after flow, isochronal, modified isochronal
- Absolute open flow potential and its interpretation
- Non-Darcy flow and turbulence in gas wells
- Effect of condensate banking on gas well inflow
- Water production effects on gas well deliverability
- Constructing and updating a gas well IPR
Module 5 - Multiphase Flow in the Wellbore
- Multiphase flow variables: superficial velocity, holdup, slip
- Flow regimes in vertical and inclined pipe
- Flow regime maps and transitions
- Pressure gradient components: hydrostatic, friction, acceleration
- Empirical correlations: Hagedorn and Brown, Duns and Ros, Beggs and Brill, Orkiszewski
- Mechanistic models and their advantages
- Correlation applicability ranges and selection criteria
- Effect of water cut, gas-oil ratio and deviation on the traverse
- Emulsion viscosity effects in high water cut wells
- Calculating a pressure traverse step by step
Module 6 - Outflow Performance and Correlation Tuning
- Vertical lift performance curve construction
- J-curve shape and the unstable region
- Minimum stable rate and its determination
- Effect of tubing size on the VLP curve
- Effect of wellhead pressure on the VLP curve
- Flowing gradient surveys: acquisition and interpretation
- Tuning correlations against measured gradients
- Correlation error magnitude and its consequences
- Selecting correlations for deviated and horizontal wells
- Temperature modelling and its effect on the traverse
Module 7 - Nodal Solutions and Sensitivity Analysis
- Combining IPR and VLP to find the operating point
- Stable and unstable solutions
- Sensitivity to reservoir pressure
- Sensitivity to skin and stimulation
- Sensitivity to tubing size
- Sensitivity to wellhead and separator pressure
- Sensitivity to water cut and gas-oil ratio
- Identifying inflow limited and outflow limited wells
- Quantifying the production gain from each candidate intervention
- Ranking intervention options on production gain and cost
Module 8 - Tubing, Choke and Completion Sizing
- Tubing size selection for current and future conditions
- Trade-off between friction loss and holdup
- Velocity string and tubing change decisions
- Erosional velocity limits and their application
- Choke performance: critical and subcritical flow
- Choke sizing and multiphase choke correlations
- Wellhead pressure management and its field level effect
- Completion selection effects on inflow performance
- Designing completions for well life rather than initial conditions
- Recompletion and tubing change candidate selection
Module 9 - Artificial Lift and Liquid Loading
- Identifying the point at which natural flow ceases
- Artificial lift method screening against well conditions
- Gas lift performance modelling and injection point determination
- Gas lift optimisation and allocation
- Electrical submersible pump performance modelling and sizing
- Rod pump and progressive cavity pump modelling
- Nodal analysis with artificial lift installed
- Liquid loading in gas wells: mechanism and prediction
- Critical unloading velocity and its calculation
- Deliquification options: velocity string, plunger, foam, compression
- Timing artificial lift installation using performance forecasts
Module 10 - Network Effects and Well Diagnosis
- Flowline and gathering network pressure losses
- Backpressure interaction between wells on a shared system
- Coupling well models with network models
- Effect of separator pressure on field production
- Field level optimisation across wells and network
- Systematic diagnosis of an underperforming well
- Distinguishing reservoir, completion, tubing, lift and surface causes
- Using production and pressure data to test hypotheses
- Building and maintaining well models across a field
- Applying well performance analysis to development planning
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.
Your expert course leader is a senior petroleum engineering consultant, certified trainer and university lecturer with more than 25 years of experience, specialising in nodal analysis and well performance evaluation.
His technical expertise covers inflow performance relationships, multiphase vertical lift performance, construction and interpretation of nodal analysis systems, tubing and choke sizing, artificial lift evaluation and selection, sensitivity and optimisation studies, network effects on well deliverability, and the diagnosis of underperforming wells.
He has provided consulting and technical support to international operators and national oil companies across the Middle East, North Africa, Asia Pacific and the Americas, working on production optimisation studies, well performance troubleshooting, artificial lift design reviews and field development planning projects across onshore and offshore assets.
He has designed and delivered technical training programmes on well performance and production engineering topics for operating companies and service providers, conducting both classroom and online sessions for engineers and technical staff across the Middle East, Asia Pacific, Africa and Europe.
Frequently Asked Questions
All course bookings made through PEA are strictly non-refundable. By registering for a course, you acknowledge and accept that all fees are payable in full and are not subject to refund under any circumstances, including changes in personal or professional commitments or partial attendance.
PEA reserves the right to make reasonable adjustments to course content, trainers, or schedules where necessary, without entitling delegates to a refund. Comprehensive details of each course — including objectives, target audience, and content — are clearly outlined before enrolment, and it is the responsibility of the delegate to ensure the course's suitability prior to booking.
For any inquiries related to cancellations or bookings, please contact our support team, who will be happy to assist you.
