Esteban Oliva and Jesus Abarca, Tenaris
Courtney Richardson, OXY
Failures due to Rod wear and tubing wear account together for an approximate range between 50% to 70% of the OPEX in Rod Lifted systems. Industry has made significant improvements by separating the steel components during their relative movement by using different materials in between them and as sacrifice components. The rod guide is one of them and it comes today in several shapes and compositions. One of those compositions, and the most successful one, is the plastic guide. In the pursuit of the best plastic for West Texas wells, Oxy and Tenaris teamed up to assess Polyketone plastics with varied concentrations of glass fiber and seeking options to reduce the friction factors of this polymer on tubing ID. This paper describes the features in the selected polymer, the different configurations considered, an overall view to the qualification program, key quality assurance steps to comply with Tenaris QMS. Finally, Oxy’s implementation of the guides and the results from the operations. Since March 2020 Tenaris started supplying guides with this polymer to Oxy. To the date of this publication more than 50,000 guides have been installed with zero failures reported.