Cleon Dunham, Oilfield Automation Consulting Bill Lane, Weatherford Guillermo Leal, BP James Martin, Consultant Cem Sarica, Univ. of Tulsa Rob Sutton, Marathon Oil
For more than ten years the Petroleum Industry has used and benefited from a Reliability Information and Failure Tracking System for electrical submersible pumping (ESP-RIFTS). More recently another RIFTS system for progressing cavity pumping (PCP-RIFTS) has proven to be beneficial to participating members. At the 2010 Sucker Rod Pumping Workshop, discussion started about developing a RIFTS project for sucker rod pumping. This is now about to become a reality. The RIFTS systems collect and store information on pumping systems and system failures. This information is tracked to discover different types of failures and failure mechanisms. Companies that are members of the RIFTS Joint Industry Project (JIP) can search this information to determine which system components work best in differing conditions. They can determine which metallurgies or system suppliers are more effective in specific situations. They can benchmark their equipment and processes vs. others.
Participation in the JIP's created for the development of ESP-RIFTS and PCP-RIFTS has been limited to Operating Companies. However, for the Sucker Rod Pumping