Paper: Application Of Systems Analysis To Sucker Rod Pumped Wells

In the last decade, systems analysis methods were widely used to describe the performance of flowing and gas lifted oil wells, several applications dealt also with gas wells. The present author's aim is to apply these procedures to sucker rod pumping and to develop calculations for modeling the operation of rod pumped wells. A discussion of systems analysis methodology is given first. Then, a sucker rod pumped well is analyzed and considerations are given on the application of these methods to describe the performance of a pumping system. For simplicity, wells pumping liquid only are investigated in this preliminary study. The pumping system is described by constructing System Performance Curve sheets. These sheets show pumping rates versus pump setting depth for different pumping modes. Conventional pumping units are considered and RP 11L procedures are used. After superimposing the IPR curve of the given well on the System Performance Curves, the production rates attainable with different pumping modes are easily found.