Paper: A Practical And Economical Approach To Selection, Handling, And Protection of Downhole Equipment

Early in 1970 all available pre-1970 subsurface equipment failure data contained in the data banks of Atlantic Richfield's Equipment Performance System were analyzed. Assuming no changes in operations or in failure patterns, it was predicted that in the year 1970: 1. Corrosion and/or equipment mishandling would be the cause of 73% of all subsurfaced equipment failures. 2. Rod failures would account for about 40% of all subsurface failures. 3. About 60% of all rod failures would be rod body and about 40% pin or coupling failures. Supervisory production personnel realized that considerable improvements in profitability could be achieved by reducing handling-caused failures and by implementing effective corrosion control programs. They also realized that attempts to control corrosion and handling-caused failures have to be initiated and carried out by personnel responsible for day-to-day operations and that these individuals should, therefore, have the knowledge and the tools to carry out this task of subsurface failure control. This task requires the necessary knowledge to determine causes of failures, available courses of action, and the economic feasibility of carrying out these courses of action. At the request of these production personnel, a short course was prepared to satisfy these needs. The subject matter was slanted toward rod failure control. It was reasoned that it was economically practical to avoid rod handling-caused failures and that corrosion control of rod failures would benefit other items of subsurface and surface equipment. This presentation condenses the short course. In sharing our approach with the oil industry, we hope for comments and suggestions to improve this approach.