Paper: Choice and Evaluation of Plunger Lift Systems

Choice of plunger type may be as critical as the surface equipment to optimize a plunger lift well. When considering plunger lift candidate's decline, IPR, velocity, fluid and pressure are used to build a proper evaluation. The necessity for proper plunger lift choice in completely optimizing a plunger well can result in incremental production from an existing plunger system by as much as 500 Mcf/day by changing from a conventional plunger lift system to a high speed bypass plunger. However, a bypass plunger in a well with the wrong conditions will not result in a successful increase and may in fact hurt production. In order to properly evaluate wells it is necessary to consider the velocity and the fluid rates for high speed bypass then change to consider more conventional methods. This paper will discuss the well evaluation process as it pertains to plunger lift applications.