Gustavo Gonzalez, Randy Simonds and Diego Pinto
Odessa Separator Inc.
Some Colombian oilfields have medium to heavy oil production and high gas volume in wells. Gas production is one of the biggest limitations in an ESP system, as they have difficulty handling a high amount of free gas. In many cases even when an ESP is used in conjunction with a gas separator and gas handlers, the amount of free gas exceeds the capacity of the system and the performance of the pump is not improved.
For a complex well of this oilfield which produced 2.2 MMCF/D (represented around 20% of the total gas produce in this Oilfield). (OSI) designed a double stage gas separation system. The ESP design consisted of a vortex ESP gas separator, gas handler, shrouded ESP + downhole gas separator with the intake installed below the shroud. This combination proved to be successful with strong pump performance.