Carlos A. Figueroa Palma, Chad Luedecke and Steve Gault
OXY USA Inc.
Current industry available technology offers pump off controllers (POC’s) that are triggered based on surface or calculated downhole parameters that indicate incomplete pump fillage. Industry experts agree that there may be a direct relationship between failure frequency (FF) and incomplete fillage cycles, which increase the overall cost of operation. This paper describes efforts that have been made to minimize and/or eliminate damaging strokes caused by incomplete filling of the pump without compromising production by operating the POC’s using card data, fluid properties, pump intake pressure (PIP) readings from downhole pressure sensor, and PIP calculated using vendor provided algorithms.
Also discussed are the results from a pilot project to gather vibration data during incomplete fillage of a beam pump at different PIPs, and use that information to control the stroke speed through a variable speed drive (VSD) to avoid partial filling of the pump and maximize production.