Barney O. Carlson, Shell Oil Co.
A basic objective of any oil producing company is to recover the maximum amount of oil from a reservoir with a minimum cost. Many of the deep reservoirs in the West Texas- New Mexico area of production will require deep artificial lifts. The installation of any method of deep pumping is costly and operation expenses are high. Consequently, oil operators are making ever effort to reduce costs in order to obtain reasonable profits from deep pumping wells. Lower operating costs will result in higher recovery percentage of one of our most important natural resources, cure oil.
The artificial lift of fluid from deep depths does not differ greatly in principles from that of pumping relatively shallow wells. Problems caused by corrosion, abrasion, or normal wear can exist in any lift installation; however, the problems inherent with any method of pumping are usually amplified with depth. A particular problem might be four time as troublesome with a 10,000-foot lift as it is with a 5,000-foot lift. This is to say that pumping from deep depths is expensive. Since there is only a small margin for error, it is essential that close control be exercised with deep-lift installations, and the costly problems involved in deep-well pumping deserve consideration and study. The percentage of total pumping wells which require deep lifts is relatively small, but it should be remembered that the number will increase and that even deeper pumping will be required in the future.