Life Cycle Gas Lift Compressor: Is Industry Missing a Better Design for Horizontal Wells?

The concept of High Pressure Gas Lift (HPGL) was first presented to industry at the 2016 ALRDC Gas Lift Workshop in Houston Texas by a co-author of this presentation. This variant form of gas lift was made possible by the advent of Compressed Natural Gas compressor cylinders with their high pressure capabilities, and it became popular because of the high liquid flow rates achieved by flowing up the casing annulus. It is now an accepted form of artificial lift.
The same compressor design first used ten years ago to pilot test HPGL is still used today, often referred to as booster compression. They are installed on completion but then later removed once the bottom hole pressure and well productivity have dropped to where Conventional Gas Lift (CGL) is more cost effective than continued booster compression rental. Sometimes boosters are reinstalled when wells become impacted by a “Frac Hit”. The point is that the process of installing temporary high pressure booster compressors possibly multiple times is costly and time-consuming.
The traditional three stage gas lift compressor that is limited to sub-1500 psig discharge pressures has been designed to substantially load the compressor frame, a long-standing practice that limits the flexibility of the compressor to operate at substantially different pressures and flowrates. As gas lifted wells transition from HPGL to CGL to PAGL and other new technology such as the “Gas Pump”, compression equipment change outs are required due to this inflexibility. We propose to end this inflexibility with an alternative three / four stage gas lift compressor designed with excess frame capacity that allows the compressor to efficiently provide discharge pressures from 500 to 5000 psig, thereby better meeting the “Life Cycle” gas lift needs of horizontal wells. This design also facilitates simple transitioning from CGL back to HPGL when frac hits occur.
Also incorporated in the compressor package design are practices that prevent (downtime inducing) hydrocarbon condensation and dump line freezing that is common with rich gas compression. These practices have been presented at various ALRDC workshops since 2018 by Will Nelle, Larry Harms, and Bill Elmer, but have seen limited implementation.
The presentation will cover the capabilities / highlights of the new compressor design with the goal of finding an operator interested in finding a better gas lift compressor for horizontal oil wells. Ten years ago, an operator stepped up to test HPGL after the ALRDC presentation “High Pressure Gas Lift: Is Industry Missing a Potentially Huge Application to Horizontal Wells?” Let’s continue making Gas Lift even better.