Paper: A WEB-BASED FAILURE FREQUENCY DIAGNOSIS AND REDUCTION SYSTEM, FEATURING IMAGING OF ROD-PUMPED PRODUCING WELLS

With over 600,000 rod-pumped wells in North America alone, failure of this common artificial lift system substantially raises lifting costs. Among the leading causes of failure in sucker rod-pumped wells are rod parts and tubing wear. Typically, an operator has little reliable data with regard to tubing deviation and the root cause of rod-on-tubing wear and tubing or sucker rod failure. In many cases, a minority of wells constitute the majority of repeat failures and workover cost in a field. Obtaining tubing geometry, wall thickness and rod condition, correlated by depth, during the well workover is critical to determine the failure root cause. A system is presented that uses high resolution data and internet-based imaging of key producing well conditions to (i) enable efficient analysis and (ii) apply preventive measures before the workover is completed and the well returned to service. An application is launched from Internet Explorer that allows dynamic 3-D viewing of individual wells or entire producing fields. Tubing and rod geometry and condition by depth in the producing well, is downloaded to the client machine from a web server in compressed XML and then imaged in an interactive graphic format. Correlation of deviation, wear and failures is rapidly displayed in a 3-D image of a specific well or a field view. Cross-wellbore queries allow mapping of common well conditions. The net result is lowered failure frequency, lower lifting costs and increased annual production.