Paper: HIGHER COMPRESSION SUCKER ROD PUMPS

While operators are always searching for new techniques to produce oil more efficiently, the economic climate in which the oil industry finds itself today has renewed efforts to seek out new opportunities to improve operational strategies. This paper will discuss a field scenario in which gas locking problems were impacting production in a mature field in West Texas operated by Texaco. This field was being produced with CO2 injection and was experiencing increases in beam lift failures and high CO2 production. After reviewing the conditions, the service/engineering company suggested a change in the pump configuration to increase the compression. A higher compression rod pump is an advantage for operators especially where gas is a concern. To accomplish the higher compression, the pump was built with the least allowable amount of unswept volume between the traveling valve and standing valve. By positioning the two valves as closely as possible and eliminating as much unswept volume as possible, positive results were experienced. Eliminating gas lock and having to long stroke wells can be of great assistance in saving money for operators. This, in turn, can eliminate the use of gas breaking devices, which can be costly. The experiments with some of the Texaco Sundown Slaughter Field wells with high C@ production have shown improvement on efficiency and gas lock As a result, the operator will also see reduced fluid pounding, which will increase the life of the equipment in the well, and thus, provide higher efficiencies and longer equipment run times.