This paper presents a discussion of the basic problem caused by sulfate reducing bacteria in oil producing, salt water disposal, and secondary recovery water injection systems. It outlines methods of detecting the presence of these harmful bacteria, and describes their role in corrosion and well plugging.

After five years of waterflooding, the West Welch (San Andres) Unit was experiencing acute production declines caused by calcium sulphate scale forming in the producing wells. A program was initiated at that time to investigate the cause of the scale growth and means of correcting it. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the field and laboratory work done to inhibit and remove CaSO4, scale from the producing wells in this waterflood. Evaluation of scale inhibitors and methods of applying them are covered as well as scale removal chemicals and procedures. In gathering and interpreting data a new use of an old tool, the caliper survey, was initiated with good success. Most of this work has been done in the last 1- 1/2 years and it is not yet considered finished as other questions must be answered for a long term and lasting conclusion.

The Harbison-Fischer Variable Slippage Pump, (VSP), has been field tested since December 1999 in wells located primarily in West Texas and New Mexico. Results have been favorable in gas locking conditions by eliminating gas locking, and increasing gas production in some wells. This paper will review the test data and the characteristics of these wells. It will also describe the fundamentals of this method of artificial lift, and present what was learned about pump component selection and downhole applications.

During the early 1960's much work was done with compressive pre-stressing of material used in oilfield equipment to overcome fatigue problems which had plagued the industry for years. The API adopted the undercut-thread sucker rod pin design to overcome pin failures which had become a serious problem as sucker rod loads increased. The undercut pin design made it possible to produce the threads by rolling, with further increases in pin fatigue strength. Micro-hardness profiles were run on these new pins, and it was found that on a typical API Class C normalized sucker rod, the hardness at the thread root had increased significantly. At a depth of about 0.001 of an inch from the surface of the thread root, the hardness value was approximately 34 on the Rockwell C scale; at 0.002 it was about 30.3 Rc: at 0.004 it was about 25.5 Rc and so on to a depth of about 0.012 of an inch where it leveled out at a Brine11 hardness of about 185. Photomicrographs proved some of the success of the new API pin could be attributed to the compressive prestress of the thread root.

The main purpose of surface strings is to keep the produced well fluids from migrating into and damaging the shallow water bearing formations. In the Indian Basin Field in southern New Mexico (Eddy County), an operator was encountering severe lost circulation intervals which made properly cementing the surface strings extremely difficult. Several expensive annular top out stages were required to fill the annulus with cement adequate to protect the groundwater and isolate this interval from oil and gas produced from the drilling of the deeper horizons. After discussion with the service company and the New Mexico Oil & Gas Commission, an unorthodox method of cementing surface strings was successfully tried and adopted to solve this problem. This method included using conventional cement foamed with nitrogen to achieve a properly cemented annulus without the need for annular top out jobs. This paper will detail how this problem was successfully addressed.

Magion deposition is a new process by which virtually any material may be tightly bonded to nearly any other material for any reason. This process uniquely utilizes ionization phenomena to impart high energy to the atoms of plating material whereby bonding is assured by penetration of these high energy depositant ions into the outer atomic surface of the object to be plated, which is referred to as the "substrate". In the actual working of the process, which is performed in a vacuum system, the plating material is vaporized yielding a continuous flux of atomic sized vapor atoms. These atoms become ionized by a twofold mechanism, collision with electrons spiraling in a magnetic field as well as by resonance with photons in a radio frequency (rf) transmission field. The t-f field also has the beneficial effect of building a negative charge on non conductors present in the field. This causes both conducting and non-conducting substrates to become attractive targets for the high energy, accelerating ions. This allows for the process to treat both metals and elastomers as equals. The three dimensional properties of the process are unusually good. One of the first arenas for success was the plating of electronic components such as semiconductors and printed circuits where through hole or side step coverage can be of paramount importance." This thin film process eliminates over a dozen wet chemistry plating steps in device manufacture resulting in a superior product at a much lower cost. Perhaps the biggest bonus of all is the elimination of wet chemistry waste products that must be disposed of at a very high cost. Contemporaneous with the advancement of the Magion process has been metallurgies appropriate for the specific problems at hand. The development of specific metallurgies, most not capable of deposition in the right alloy form by any process, was essentially necessary before the Magion process could be employed to yield a finished product. One gauge of success to date is to note the current licensees and their field of usage. Many of these will be discussed at length in the body of this paper. An important consideration will be protection of the environment that this technology offers. The best way of dealing with pollution is to remove the source of its generation. New developments in elastomeric seal technology aid in pollution control.

A newly developed cement additive provides excellent compressive strengths for lightweight, filler-type cement compositions used for cementing surface pipe. Cement compositions incorporating the new additive will. Meet Texas Railroad Commission strength requirements for surface pipe and critical zone applications. Cement compositions mixed at densities of 11.6 to 12.2 lb/gal developed in excess of the required 250 psi compressive strength in 24 hours for a surface pipe and a composition mixed at 12.4 lb/gal developed 1200 psi in less than 72 hours for critical zone applications. Slurries containing this additive have also shown good fluid loss properties, accelerated setting times, and high temperature stability. Laboratory test results as well as field results from cement compositions typically used in surface pipe, critical zone, filler cement, and high temperature applications are presented.

Operators of deep gas wells in West Texas have installed a wide variety of gas producing equipment to best utilize the productivity of specific wells and to meet gas contract requirements. Several installations are illustrated and discussed, and the need for the equipment engineer to be familiar with gas contracts is emphasized.

A presentation of the role that organic surfactants play in water flooding. Field applications, treatment evaluations, and history of organic surfactants progress in water treatment are discussed. Included is a study of five major injection problems that are usually controlled by surfactant treatment.

The results presented here are the conclusions reached by surveying key people within our industry on paraffin control. The survey was developed within the Permian Basin Operators Work Group that consists of members from Arco, Exxon, Pennzoil, Artificial Lift Solutions, Oxy, Cross Timbers, Burlington Resources, Amerada Hess, Texaco, Pioneer, Phillips and Chevron.

A flotation system is described wherein an extremely high concentration of micro bubbles is introduced into the water to assure a high probability of particular flotation. No pumps are required to supply dirty water directly to the system thus minimizing undue emulsification of suspended oil droplets. Coagulants and other chemicals readily facilitate flotation in the event that emulsions or colloidal material are present.

Sustainability is universally sought by individuals and groups. Few people would overtly choose to live in a non-sustainable environment. It is a part of our continually evolving nature to not become extinct in a changing environment. In contrast some people and groups view sustainability as a near static circumstance facilitated by an unchanging environment. According to them, this near original natural environment should and can be maintained indefinitely by careful management and stewardship. In some sense, the original form of nature has become sacred for them, almost worshiping nature. This paper suggests another approach to sustainability. Sustainability is viewed as dynamic concept within a changing environment. This approach permits humans to flourish indefinitely. Sustainability is a process that uses a changing set of "raw materials" and knowledge to provide goods, services, and culture for humans, indefinitely. The history and pre-history of humans is a record of developing more efficient processes to sustain an increasing human population, in which individuals have increasingly long and productive lives. It is the work of historians, and archeologists to document this process of developing human skills to serve human needs. The major transitions were as follows: Hunter / gatherer tribes Agriculturally centered societies Science and engineering based societies Information sustained societies These transitions have been viewed as waves overwhelming each other as illustrated by the book title, "The Third Wave" (Toffler, 1980). I view these transitions as foundations on which new human accomplishments may be supported, Figure1 (Parker, 2002) not waves. In this present information age we are still dependent upon the basics: Agriculture for our food Mining, including petroleum production for energy and minerals, Traditional engineering design for our essential mechanical infrastructure, The rate of change is accelerating. The transition to agriculture happened about 10,000 years ago. The industrial revolution started about 300 years ago, and the information age perhaps 60 years ago with World War I1 computers and information theory developments. Some people might say the information age started with the practical electric telegraph some 160 years ago, as inferred by the book title "The Victorian Internet" (Standage, 1998). The rate of technology change is accelerating rapidly and the rate of change is seen as impacting us directly as suggested by the book title, "Future Shock" (Toffler, 1970). The task of this paper is to partially understand the rapid, technology-driven societal changes as a process for providing sustainability, not the destruction of natural environments and so our sustainable society.

Multiple-stage hydraulic fracturing has dramatically increased hydrocarbon production in the United States. Large fresh water requirements, coupled with recent concerns over water sustainability, have increased the importance of oilfield water management. FIML Natural Resources, LLC was using fresh water for hydraulic fracturing, and then hauling the waste water to a disposal site. To reduce fresh water consumption and the cost for disposal, a pilot study was performed to assess reuse of all their fracturing flowback fluid, produced water, and drilling waste water. Instead of extensive multistep water treatment to bring the water to a near-fresh state, Baker Hughes took a holistic approach, resulting in a singlestep mobile treatment system to remove critical contaminants and sufficiently clean the water to design a fracturing fluid. This paper will discuss the optimized recycling and reuse operation, fracturing fluid development from recycled water, the field application and a cost savings comparison

The majority of wells in the biggest Hungarian oil field is placed on continuous flow gas lift. The gas lift system, designed in the late 1960s has many very unique features dictated by the economic and technological constraints of those times. Proper operation was maintained till recently but changes in reservoir parameters due to the depletion of the field have brought about many unfavorable conditions leading to increased lift gas requirements and rising production costs. The paper investigates the effects of the crucial system parameters like tubing size, wellhead and gas lift pressures, and their role in the field's profitability. Using field data and computer calculations, optimum values for tubing size and injection pressure are found. The widespread use of wellhead chokes for controlling well production rates is shown to have a detrimental effect. With assumed optimum conditions, total required gas lift volumes are calculated and compared to present values. The system modifications proposed by the authors are shown to have a great potential in significantly improving the economy of production operations in Algyo.

Although the utilization of foaming surfactants (foamers) through down-hole capillary tubing has been used by the industry for a number of years to unload liquids from natural gas wells, there has been marked increase in the application in the past year. This marked increase has resulted, in part, due to improved gas economics, continuing liquid loading problems with onshore gas wells, and improvements in capillary-string installation and foamer technologies. A systematic approach to the evaluation of wells for potential application has been used to improve its success. This evaluation includes the use of a down-hole computer model in conjunction with field and laboratory tests. This paper discusses the approach involved in the evaluation, case studies that demonstrate the success of the evaluation process for the unloading of liquids from gas wells and the treatment of gas wells for salt plugging, and the economic results of the applications.

This paper summarizes the evolution of a polymer drilling fluid that was developed for drilling through the sticky redbeds of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. The polymer is not a new chemical; however, it has not been used previously for drilling through the swelling redbeds found throughout most of the Permian Basin. Advantages and disadvantages as well as problems encountered while using the polymer drilling fluid are pointed out and discussed. Data obtained from actual field drilling operations are used to compare the polymer drilling fluid with various conventional drilling fluids usually employed. Results presented emphasize the importance of the polymer drilling fluid in effectively eliminating the severe problem of drilling through the redbeds at a cost lower than or comparable to that of conventional drilling fluids normally used.

How much automation can you afford? In every tank battery consolidation installation this question must be answered. One answer, as pertaining to the Dollarhide Unit, is presented in this paper. The automation incorporated in the Dollarhide Unit tank battery consolidation system was specifically designed for the unit's operating conditions by the unit engineers. By designing the controls for a specific installation, it is felt that the consolidated tank batteries will be more economical and less complex. The unit operating conditions are presented so the reader may have an insight as to why only partial automation was desired. Next the equipment used to produce the oil from the wellhead to the pipeline is discussed. The particular design used to achieve partial automation in the consolidated tank batteries is presented.

The petroleum industry has had to curtail incoming manpower in the last few years due to a changing economic landscape. This change has made optimal use of engineering resources imperative. The optimization need not cause major upheavals within the industry. A shift in managerial thinking and a strategic integration of engineers and engineering managers into functional syndicates will aid in tapping the engineering energy and expertise present in an organization. The human brain processes information in several ways. Individually, these brain processing patterns determine how a person perceives and processes information. If the various processing mechanisms are drawn together, a powerful decision-making/problem-solving entity is formed. The discipline of petroleum engineering possesses within it areas of expertise that require different information processing mechanisms. All of these areas require, to a degree, the linear, exacting method of problem-solving common to all forms of engineering. Further differences exist, however, between the various functions of petroleum engineering. A reservoir engineer must have the ability to see a geologic structure thousands of feet below the earth's surface and envision the ebb and flow of fluids within the porous rock. A production engineer is required to monitor the operation of pumping units, tank batteries, and similar equipment in order to optimize well productivity. In many engineers, these functions overlap, but both functions require separate information processing systems. The reservoir engineer must access his spatial, or analog, system, and the production engineer must access his mechanical, or digitai, system. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a sample of petroleum engineers to determine the presence or absence of definitive information processing patterns within assigned functional classifications. The results of this study could provide petroleum engineering managers a means of tailoring engineering teams to work with optimal effectiveness both together and separately. The concept may further be extended to the management of a company by choosing managers to operate in particular capacities according to their information processing and managerial styles. The identification of brain dominance patterns may become invaluable in the strategic development of companies over the long term by providing a method to optimize the resource of engineering expertise available.

Tax investments are one of the vehicles that many investors may consider to reach their personal financial goals. A good tax investment lets you use dollars that would otherwise be paid in taxes, along with some out of your own pocket, to acquire assets that will help increase your net worth. To understand how it works, you have to look at how a tax investment is set up, as well as what it does.

Enhanced oil recovery may be defined as any combination of methods and materials which recovers oil more effectively than either plain waterflooding or gas injection. The three basic mechanisms which can be used (individually or in combination) to achieve increased recovery are to: (1) lower interfacial tension between oil and water; (2) use a solvent to extract oil; and (3) reduce viscosity contrast between the oil and displacing fluid by thinning the oil or thickening the displacing fluids. Many methods and materials have had- extensive laboratory and field testing, and many combinations have been proved to be effective for displacing oil. However, economic and technical constraints limit current choices to 10 methods which use a total of only 8 individual compounds or general groups of chemical substances which include: light hydrocarbons, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, surfactant formulations (including co-solvents and salts), water-solublenpolflers, alkaline materials, air, and water. Technical screening criteria forn selecting the methods appropriate for Permian Basin reservoirs are described. Economic limitations are also discussed. The technical and economic logic behind the big push for CO2 flooding in the Permian Basin are emphasized.

Recent advances in the design of sonic logging tools and in the development of computer software have provided methods for the detection of hydrocarbons in porous formations. The detection of hydrocarbons is based on changes in the acoustical proper-ties of the formation, such as compressive wave travel time, Tc, shear wave travel time, Ts, attenuation of the acoustic energy, and changes in the frequency of the acoustic signal. The compressive and shear wave travel time to the compressive wave travel time is termed the velocity ratio. Extensive prior research has demonstrated that each rock type has a fairly specific velocity ratio. However, when compressible fluids occupy a portion of the pore space in the rock, the compressive wave travel time increases, which results in a lower than expected velocity ratio for a given lithology. One of the limitations of using the velocity ratio as a method for detection of compressible hydrocarbons is that the lithology must be known. Interpretation methods have been developed which combine the velocity ratio and Photoelectric absorption index, Pe. This technique enables the velocity ratio to be used for the detection of hydrocarbons in formations where there may be changes in the lithology. The velocity ratio has been compared to a synthetic velocity ratio which is calculated from the volumetric fractions of the various lithologies present in the formation. This method has been used successfully in formations composed of a mixture of many lithologies. Several log examples will be presented that show these techniques have been successful for the detection of hydrocarbons.

The main purpose of staged fracture treatments is to selectively treat all the zones of interest in place of a collective treatment. Historically, cast iron bridge plugs were used for isolation of previously treated zones. After all desired intervals were stimulated, the plugs were drilled and the well brought on to production. However, cast iron bridge plugs do not allow the lower zones to be flowed back until the plugs are drilled out of the well bore. In the Sonora Area Field in West Texas (Sutton County), an operator was encountering a lower percentage of fracturing fluids recovered and decreased initial production rates. A new method of zonal isolation, which included immediate flow-back, was successfully tried and adopted to solve this problem. This method using composite bridge plugs achieved an improved flow-back of fracturing fluids and enhanced the wells productivity. This paper will detail how this problem was successfully addressed.

When does a string of tubing look like? When a 10,000ft string of tubing is run into a well, all that is left to see is a few inches of tubing innocently sticking out of the wellhead, graphically portrayed in Figure 1. But, just what does the rest of the tubing look like?

In I977 the on-.site operations began on the Edna Delcambre No. I to evaluate the geothermal potential of high-pressure, high-temperature salt-water-bearing sands which are common to the Gulf Coast region. This projects, which was funded by the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), tested two sands of the Planulian sand series. A discussion of the problems encountered, tests conducted, and equipment used. along with a summary of the results is presented in this paper.

Rule 36 of the Texas Railroad Commission is rapidly being recognized as one of the most, perhaps the most significant safety regulation of the post-OSHA era. Until the initial publication of Rule 36 in 1975 the many hazards of HIS were only vaguely understood and no regulation for positive control of the gas existed. It covers drilling operations as well as production and provides that every operator have written operating and training plans to protect both employees and the general public from uncontrolled gas leakage. It provides a workable mathematical formula for computing gas dispersion. Since its final issue in 1976, Rule 36 has become a model for similar state oil and gas regulations in numerous states and was one of the principal sources of data for the proposed safety standard recommended by NIOSH. Its scope and thoroughness make it a landmark.