With the advent of the super deep well the particular properties of gases become more critical. Both heavy hydrocarbon gases and the relatively lighter hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide follow the general gas laws, but the apparent problem from the floor of the drilling rig is quite different. The reservoirs in super deep wells contain gases under greater than critical pressure and temperatures that are liberated to the mud stream as a "liquid". This poses some very critical problems in the early detection and later control of high pressure gas reservoirs. The great depth of the new super deep wells enforces a time lag on all actions that can be very confusing and further masks the problem of critical pressure of gas. An understanding of these phenomena can help alleviate the difficulties experienced in drilling into very deep, high-pressure gas reservoirs.

This paper presents a basic method for designing and analyzing continuous and intermittent flow gas lift installations by combining mathematical and graphical design techniques. By expressing the graphical presentations of well performance in the form a pressure-depth diagram, one standard procedure can be employed to design continuous and intermittent flow gas lift installations using any basic type of gas lift valve. This approach to gas lift design presents a complete graphical picture of the pressure conditions that are encountered in the wellbore during the "kick-off" and producing phases of gas lift thus providing the designer with a better understanding of gas lift operation.

This paper deals with the problems of gas lift design for a dually completed well. Gas lift flow valves are described. The limitations of small tubing and restricted annular areas are noted. Problems of flow valves design for small tubing are emphasized. Methods for gas lifting only one zone of a separate injection gas source for each zone to be lifted, as compared with common gas source for both zones, are discussed. Application of concentric and parallel type dual gas lift installations are outlined. The advantages of retrievable gas lift equipment are mentioned.

This paper presents a history of intermittent gas lift production practices in multiple completed wells in the TXL Field in Ector County, Texas, and the South Andrews Field in Andrews County, Texas. These two fields contain most of Shell Oil Company's gas lift installations in the Permian Basin. Attention is given to individual installation designs in an attempt to evaluate their merit or demerit for particular well conditions. The purpose of this paper is to show the approach to multiple gas lift operation in these two areas progressively over an approximate ten-year span with particular emphasis given to improvements based on experience with an evaluation of prior installations.

The proper design of a gas lift installation is not always readily apparent from well data. Previews mechanics of continuous flow and intermittent flow and factors affecting design.

Advanced exploration into, and production

Gas migration or "gas cut cement 'I has been an industry problem for many years. This paper discusses the testing of six different cement slurry additives and a saturated saltwater slurry, all designed to prevent gas migration. The slurries were tested for their effectiveness at preventing gas migration at low pressures, such as is experienced offshore in shallow gas sands. Test equipment of a new design was fabricated. The slurries were exposed to gas pressure at the bottom of a 17 foot cement column in 1-1/2" pipe and the volume of invading gas measured. The hardened columns were then cut into sections to observe the channels created by the gas. The study showed that none of the products were able to completely stop the gas migration. Some products did appear to perform better than others but none were completely effective. The testing showed several of the slurry's properties to be associated with the formation of gas channels. In many of the tests, unexpected and as of yet unexplained gaps enveloped in the cement columns as the cement hardened. Based on these results, additional testing is being conducted.

A discussion of the selection of gas regulators and controls with special emphasis on design, material of construction, and sizing. Sizing equations, with example problems are presented. A glossary of control industry terminology is included.

Natural gas presently supplies approximately one-third of the energy used in the United States. The current critical shortage of natural gas presents a challenging problem to the pipeline industry, the consumer and the producer. Only through cooperation by all three parties and the Federal Government will it be possible to continue to supply even the current percentage of the energy used in the United States through natural gas.

Gas turbines are being utilized as the prime movers for Gulf's Goldsmith (5600-ft.) Field Water Injection Station. The Goldsmith (5600-ft.) Field is located in Ector County, Texas. This paper will endeavor to describe the installation, operation, and economics of using gas turbines as prime movers. This paper will cover a period of almost 5 years, from initial installation in April 1961 to January 1966.

Higher gas prices have presented new opportunities in gas fields. An imperative issue throughout these fields is liquid loading. This paper discusses and presents results from a low rate, low cost deliquification project. Inexpensive pumping units with a small motor and pump are installed to keep water off the formation, enabling the production of gas. This is a long term solution allowing the well to produce to its economic limit in an efficient, low maintenance system.

There are several concepts now available in the industry to pump water downward below a packer in a gas well and allow the gas to flow freely up the casing of a gas well. This reduces the flowing gradient and allows gas flow to occur at a lower flowing bottom hole pressure. Also it eliminates any water disposal problems. This can now be done with ESP systems, PCP systems and also beam lift systems. In order for these systems to perform, a zone below the gas producing zone must be available where the water can be injected below a packer. According to Enviro-Tech Tools, State Regulatory Commissions are classifying this method as a Class II injection well, and as such they require underground injection control permits. This paper centers on discussion of some systems using modified beam lift systems to inject water in a gas well to enhance gas production. Systems are reviewed and some field experience is discussed.

Various treatment fluids and techniques have been used in attempts to stimulate gas production from the Morrow Sandstone formation in S.E. New Mexico. None of the treating fluids or techniques use in the past have given consistently successful results. Recent developments in stimulation fluid surfactants and refined treatment techniques have improved the operator's chances for successfully stimulating the Morrow. This paper reviews the problems associated with the Morrow and outlines treatment procedures and materials to use in stimulating Morrow gas wells.

A major objective of open-hole log analysis is the determination of the fluid content of the porous formations surrounding the wellbore. However, engineers frequently encounter severe difficulty when attempting this determination in low porosity pay zones because of deep, thorough flushing of the near wellbore formation by drilling mud filtrate. This problem is compounded flow pressure gas overlies oil or water, especially when resistivity logs are not available. This difficult arises because virtually total replacement of the gas by mud filtrate will suppress the gas effect which porosity logs experience in gas-saturated zones. The technique described in this paper will help to identify gas accumulations and gas-liquid contacts in the reservoir in situations in which mud filtrate flushing has hindered such identification. Using only the dual porosity log, the compensated neutron-density log, and the definition of density-derived porosity, the log analyst can easily and accurately locate gas zones and gas-liquid contacts, thus saving the costs of additional well logging, formation testing, and/or coring.

The paper presents the results of a study of dynamometer cards and pumping units of different dimensions. The purpose of the study was to determine methods of reducing gear box torque. Generally, this torque is the most expensive item in a sucker rod pumping unit installation and the use of a smaller sized gear box is almost always economically justified. The study that is reported in this paper is aimed at methods of selecting pumping unit dimensions and counterweights so that the smallest possible gear box torque is developed. The study has been made using typical dynamometer cards to reflect typical rod loadings. A mechanical device was used to digitize the dynamometer cards: then a computer program was used to calculate gear box torque for different kinds of pumping units.

The success of fracture-acidizing treatments in carbonate formations at high temperatures of 250- 400_F depends upon the in-depth penetration of live acid to produce effective etching of the fracture faces. In the fracture-acidizing treatments, viscous solutions called pads are injected ahead of the acid to improve acid penetration. Fracturing fluids which remain highly viscous at elevated temperatures create fractures with high fluid conductivity in both sandstone and carbonate reservoirs. With the greater flow capacity through the fracture, the depth of fracture penetration can be extended with larger volume treatments to increase productivity of the treated well. This paper describes the development, important characteristics, and a field test of a new high-temperature fracturing fluid called gelled PROD fluid. The viscous fluid was developed and tested in the laboratory in a cooperative project with personnel of Drilling Specialties Company, a Phillips" subsidiary.

This paper deals with the practical aspects of safety when drilling wells that encounter hydrogen sulfide gas, the type and amount of equipment needed, the grade of air used, the use of air compressors, and the characteristics to look for when renting or buying safety breathing equipment. The paper explains the how and why of the physiological effects and after-effects of H2S. The author feels an important part of the training for an H2S environment is the knowledge of what happens when H2S is taken into the lungs, the steps that must be taken to remove it, and how to prepare workers for an H2S environment. The paper attempts to dispel many of the myths and old wives" tales heard concerning H2S around the oilfield today.

The Petroleum Industry, as in many industries, always has had its safety problems, but down through the years continuous effort has served to make it one of the safest occupations in American industry.

The Permian Basin is one of the major hydrocarbon producing provinces in the United States. It produces approximately 22% of the nation's oil and substantial amounts of gas. Geographically, it covers southeastern New Mexico and much of West Texas. This paper will concentrate on the New Mexico portion of the Basin in an effort to provide the engineer with a basic review of the geological features and reservoir characteristics of the area. There are many subprovinces in this large basin which affected the formation of reservoir rock and the accumulation of hydrocarbons. An understanding of the origin of these subprovinces should greatly aid the engineer's efforts to develop new reserves and improve recovery from existing reservoirs. Shown in Figure 1 are the major geological features (or subprovinces) of the area. These are the Central Basin Platform, the Delaware Basin, Eddy Shelf, Northwest Shelf and Pedernal Land Mass. All but the Pedernal Land Mass are major producing areas. Each has its own structural and depositional characteristics which resulted in distinct reservoir properties and hydrocarbon accumulation. Each of the features will be discussed in some detail.

The Pitchfork Ranch Field is located in southwestern Lea County, New Mexico, about 17 miles northwest of Jal and about 110 miles northwest of Midland. See Figure I. Figure II is a composite electric type log indicating the various pay zones of the Pitchfork Ranch Field. Figure III shows the area1 distribution of the field and its general structure. Figure IV is a net isopach of the Morrow "C" Sand, the main pay zone in the field.

1- Raw Materials: A brief discussion of basic raw materials for glass reinforced tubular goods, mechanisms of polymerization and comparative properties of different types of resins. 2- Designing Filament Wound Structure: How glass fiber and resin can be utilized to obtain maximum strength and how design can be varied to obtain best performance depending on end use stress conditions. 3- Testing and Rating: Accelerated laboratory test method to project performance ratings and correlation with field test data. 4- Case Histories: Typical installations where reinforced plastic piping has been used to overcome corrosion problems in petroleum producing activities.

The development and application of a unique series of environmentally friendly microemulsion additives over the past four years has shown success in thousands of oil and gas wells in the U.S. and Canada. Microemulsions, while not new fundamentally, have been formulated to become stable nanostructures dispersed in either oil or water based fluids so that they do not actively dilute and activate upon contact with a surface, such as reservoir rock or other targeted liquid or solid, thereby providing via ultra-low interfacial tension, an optimum mechanism for significantly improved efficiency for dewatering of coal-bed methane wells; formation damage prevention or removal in fracturing or acidizing systems; H2S mitigation in a variety of remedial pumping operations including stimulation, wellbore and fluid invasion protection for drilling fluids, particularly in underbalanced conditions.Specific laboratory and scientific background information, with numerous case histories from around the Western and Eastern U.S. oil and gas fields will be presented for each of the categories above. They will demonstrate process enhancement using microemulsion additives both in standalone as well as in providing improvements to other regularly used technologies. Comparisons showing their successful use versus current technologies will be made.

Tests were conducted to evaluate the plugging mechanisms of metallic screens after cleaning up the filtercake developed on an unconsolidated core by two exiting drill-in fluids (DIF"s). Two simulated drill solids, clay or 75-mm reservoir sand were added as drill solids to these DIF"s. Metallic screens were used to simulate the sand control device. The DIF's tested included a sized-calcium carbonate (SCC) and a sized-salt (SS). The presence of the drill solids was found to affect the particle size distribution as well as the mean size (D50) of the particles of the bridging and weighting material (BWM) and loss control material (LCM) of the DIF"s. On the basis of the observations, it can be concluded that SCC filtercakes tended to result in minimum dislodging pressure (MDP), leading to higher regained-flow capacity and lower plugging of the screen. In contrast, SS filtercakes required high MDP, decreasing the regained-flow capacity highly and causing severe plugging of the screens.

The most important objectives of the laboratory work presented here were aimed at investigating how the chemical composition of the natural formation brine and different minerals present in the carbonate formations interact with CO2 injection under supercritical conditions. The study focused on the alteration of the petrophysical properties of the carbonate reservoir rocks resulting from the interaction of rock/ formation brine and injected CO2. Conventional and Neutron Magnetic Resonance (NMR) core analyses indicated that that low pore volume of CO2 injection caused substantial reduction in the petropysical properties of the samples, permeability and porosity. The permeability was reduced by about 50% and the pore volume and porosity by about 25%. In contrast, the injection of high pore volume of CO2 showed a slight increase in the petrophysical properties. The static interaction between supercritical CO2 and natural formation brine showed a precipitate formed primarily by calcite, dolomite, gypsum, halite and other mineral salts.

The common beam and sucker rod pumping unit is old technology yet it continues to be part ofthe most popular artificial lift system in use today for several good reasons. A few of the more important are: It is a simple mechanical mechanism that is easily understood and therefore easy to keep in good repair. It is a highly efficient part of the beam and sucker rod artificial lift system. It can be very ruggedly built resulting in a long useful life. Because the surface unit has a history of being relatively trouble free, there is generally little attention given to providing really good preventive maintenance to this equipment. Rather the attention is given to some other part of the system that requires more frequent repair. As a result, when a failure occurs in the pumping unit, it is often a surprise and expensive. Exceptional maintenance can add years to the life of the machinery and reduce operating cost. This paper is intended to supplement your existing preventive maintenance program by developing a good understanding of the really important maintenance requirements for a beam pumping unit.