Artificial Lift

Automation has been used for many years now as a means for oil and gas operators to optimize sucker rod pump wells. Traditional automation for rod pump wells involved operating the well at a fixed speed and idling the well based on a preprogramed time (time clocks) or fillage (pump off control). However, utilizing a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD)is a more sophisticated method to allow operators to...

One of the benefits of utilizing a Sucker Rod Pump for artificially lifted oil and gas wells is that they can achieve total drawdown the casing fluid above the downhole pump. This allows for the artificial lift method to maximize the production of the well by minimizing the back pressure on the reservoir caused by the fluid level in the casing anulus. However, in some cases the original design of...

Gas lift is long known to be an effective and versatile form of artificial lift and is widely used in oil and gas production. The gas lift process is dependent on gas pressures not naturally available from oil and gas production facilities. Rather gas must be pressurized through use of a compressor and thus compressors are a vital component to the gas lift process. Unfortunately, some operators...

Rod pumps often fail due to gas and solid interference. When the system’s check valves are unable to displace these solids or gas it can cause failure and significant damage to the overall rod pump system, such as intense ball rattling, plugged cages, inefficient pump fillage, and fluid pounding. 

Historically, the industry has dealt with these issues by utilizing stellite lined and insert guided...

Rod pump failures often times exceed the failures rates of other downhole products, such as sucker rods and tubing. The largest section of the rod pump, and most costly to replace, is the pump barrel. Barrels of all different shapes and sizes, material grades and coating options are available to the market. The available coatings have been questioned for their durability while also being limited...

Main objective of this paper is to introduce oil and gas industry the new E3000 and E1000 pump models across multiple wells in the Permian and Delaware Basins in term of performance, and operation improvements. It is intended to show a reader pump performance enhancement and comparison to older models based on operator required production rates, pump loads, power consumption and other electrical...

Sucker rods are simple in form and function, however, they operate in a sophisticated engineered system over great lengths without direct visibility. Because of this, we as engineers must do our best in predictive efforts to provide the best configuration for the highly dynamic system.

Rod string design software utilizes complex math to compute stress loading throughout the system. Design...

Since becoming a Lift Specialist in November of 2019, it was very clear we had significantly higher failure frequencies on wells with 4.5” liner, 2 3/8” tubing, and 1.75” tubing pumps vs other configurations. My knowledge is solely based on South Plains and the problems we faced.

One of my counterparts had reached out to the pump shops to understand how we could beef up pull rods. It was...

Given several pumping cycles worth of surface card data, the dv8 advanced diagnostics model is solved and the rod displacements, axial loads and sideloads are calculated, starting from the polished rod and propagating to the pump. From the axial load, the rod stress is computed. The points along the rod string are then analyzed using a modified Goodman diagram applicable to the type of rod string...

Long lateral, high-rate wells in the Permian basin present unique challenges to maximize rate relative to ensuring flow stability with gas lift. Annular flow gas lift has offered a transitional lift method between high rate casing flow and traditional tubing flow gas lift to maximize well production. However, annular flow and annular flow gas lift have presented a more aggressive corrosion profile...