Cleon Dunham, Oilfield Automation Consulting, & Shaikhan Al Khadhori & Abdullah Al Harthy, Petroleum Development Oman
Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), working in close cooperation with several other companies, is developing and testing a remote, automatic, intelligent ESP system for Oman's challenging operations. This progress report describes the system concepts, expected benefits, and current status. PDO operates nearly 600 ESPs; this number is continuously growing. Many are located in very remote areas; many produce from sandy formations; many produce significant amounts of gas; most use fixed speed drives. These wells must be carefully started and operated to avoid damage from sand, inefficiency from gas, and safe and effective operation within the normal pump envelope. Currently, this is very labor intensive. Due to remote locations, it often results in excessive, hazardous desert driving, inefficient use of manpower, significant production deferment, and excessive operating costs. To optimize these wells, PDO is developing a system that includes downhole instrumentation to measure pump pressures and other key variables, a real-time sand production monitor, an automatic well-head control valve (for wells with fixed speed drives), and a full production automation (SCADA) system. The wells must be started and/or restarted slowly to avoid sand production problems or gas interference. Production must be ramped slowly enough to avoid these problems, but rapidly enough to avoid down-thrust or excessive motor heating. ESP Technicians are able to interact with the system from the field or corporate offices to optimize operational parameters and troubleshoot faults and shutdowns. Major benefits are expected to be up to 80% reduction in desert driving, significant improvements in production and equipment life, major reductions in deferment and ESP operating costs, and wider application of ESPs in preference to beam pumps and gas-lift. Initial field tests are underway in the Wafra Field in PDO. Implementation on more wells in PDO is anticipated when the field tests are successfully completed in early 2003.