Artificial Lift

Current industry available technology offers pump off controllers (POC’s) that are triggered based on surface or calculated downhole parameters that indicate incomplete pump fillage. Industry experts agree that there may be a direct relationship between failure frequency (FF) and incomplete fillage cycles, which increase the overall cost of operation.

A casing gas separator (CGS) is a safe to run, low-risk, and efficiency altering tool that pairs naturally with existing wellbore design and work practices to vastly improve gas handling and capacity in virtually any form of artificial lift.

Rod pumps with isolated tailpipe systems have been growing in popularity over the past few years and applied in basins all over the US.  Some earlier system component designs had vital shortcomings that became more evident over time with the growing install base.  

Over 70% of the artificially lifted wells in the US are using sucker rod pumping systems. The sucker rod pumping system has been ameliorated during past years due to the high investment of companies and installers as performance of the sucker rod pumping system directly impacts production volume and consequently revenue of E&P companies. The sucker rod is one of the most vulnerable components of a sucker rod pumping system.

Synthetic Polyphthalamide (PPA) has greater resistance than many plastics to a broad range of chemicals and is widely used in the manufacture of sucker-rod guides when operating at depths where temperatures can reach 300℉ (149℃). However, while rated to 400℉, field experience has shown that under certain conditions, the service life of sucker-rod guides constructed of this material can be adversely affected at depths with temperatures as low as 220℉ in continuous use.

This paper describes an artificial lift case study where three pilot test wells were installed using measuring-while-installing (MWI) equipment during the process. The final results enabled us to meet the goals and expectations of these test wells. The main test objectives were to reduce the time to run the electrical submersible pump (ESP) in the well, to 

Re-utilization of company owned artificial lift equipment and parts is a common practice among operators and service providers across the industry.  It is common practice for operators to resize artificial lift equipment at failure or proactively as economics allow. During resizing activity, it is not uncommon to utilize company owned equipment and inventory to satisfy the hydraulic lifting requirements of the system.

Pertamina Hulu Energi Offshore North West Java (PHE ONWJ), which is a Production Sharing Contractor of the Government of Indonesia, operates a large number of offshore ESP wells in Java Sea, Indonesia. To stimulate the wells and increase near-wellbore permeability, PHE ONWJ has executed matrix acidizing from 2013 until 2015. During acid deployment, ESP was left in place (downhole). In fact, the ESP was also switched on to unload the spent acid. Given the acid corrosive properties on metals which make up some of the ESP components, a post-stimulation evaluation was conducted in May 2016.

The pump stroke can be longer than the surface stroke when the dynamic motion of the beam pump system adds momentum to the rod string, resulting in the pump stroke length increasing.  The pump stroke can be shorter than the surface stroke when sucker rods stretch to pick up the pump fluid load and other frictional forces.  Rod stretch creates under travel dynamometer card shape.  Pumping fast or high plunger velocities creates over travel cards. 

Many sucker rod lifted wells are operating at less than 30% electrical efficiency, because the downhole gas separator installed in the well is inefficient.  Free gas interfering with liquid filling the pump is a major operational problem encountered in producing Sucker Rod Lifted wells.  Gas interference is when free gas at the pump intake enters the pump filling displacement volume with gas in place of liquid, then significant loss in liquid production, reduced drawdown, increased failures and inefficiency occurs.