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The paper will cover L.B.O.D.'s first two years of operating experience with a Power Water subsurface hydraulic pumping system. Included will be discussions of the physical systems, installation costs, operating costs, operating problems and approaches to eliminating these problems and reducing costs.

The Twofreds Delaware Sand Reservoir was discovered in 1957 and developed as a water-flood unit in 1963. By 1973, after a moderately successful waterflood, the production rate had declined to near economic limit. Carbon Dioxide injection for oil recovery was instigated in 1974, therefore, oil recovery since 1974 represents tertiary oil recovery after water-flooding. This paper discusses the actual application of CO2 injection procedures and the field performance for the 6-year period since CO2 injection was started.

By 1960 a good majority of all producing wells on artificial lift in the United States will be on electric pump. Electrification of oil leases is increasing at a rapid rate for several reasons. All factors considered, it generally costs the operator less money to produce a barrel of oil by using electric power and equipment than it does by using gas engines.

For some time, the Petroleum Industry has recognized that fluids will experience "U-tubing" at some point during the placement in the wellbore. This "vacuum" effect has been especially noticeable during primary cementing operations, and it is largely attributed to the fact that the fluids used in cementing often are more dense than those originally in the wellbore. The phenomenon of the U-tube effect, although recognized, has never been fully understood.

The final disposition of difficult-to-treat waste water, e.g., brines and of the residues resulting from the treatment and renovation of waste waters, e.g., sludges, is generally termed "ultimate disposal". The techniques of ultimate disposal include the treatment, handling, or placement of the waste in such a manner that it never comes in contact with human activities while in its noxious form.

Artificial lift technology advancements typically are derived through either evolution or revolutionary means. When an irrefutable lift system benefit is chosen to be enhanced, it may require a revolutionary design concept to obtain the desired feature. This is the scenario that lead to the development of the. Rotaflex, an ultra long stroke pumping system we will refer to as the ULSPS. It is widely accepted that a long, slow stroke, big bore pump is the preferred pumping parameter of many experienced artificial lift technicians.

Data collected over a three-year period on individually monitored wells has provided strong evidence to support the rationalization regarding ultra long stroke pumping systems (ULSPS"s). A total of thirteen ULSPS's are included in this study. Electrical costs per barrel and failure frequency will be compared to electrical submersible pump systems and conventional beam pumping systems.

The Delaware sand is a common oil producing formation in the Permian Basin. It is a low permeability sandstone that requires proppant fracture treatments in order to be economically viable. Typically these treatments consist of crosslinked water based fluids with polymer loadings of approximately 30 pounds per one thousand gallons and carry from 25,000 to over 200,000 pounds of 20/40 mesh sand.

The flow of gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons is now routinely measured ultrasonically. Ultrasonics has taken some twenty years to prove itself in nonideal industrial petrochemical process control applications. It has now reached the stage where many users specify ultrasonics when they want to achieve reliable, accurate measurements without loss of pressure; linearity despite wide turndown ratios; no moving parts; wide temperature range; portability. The ultrasonic flowmeter output can in general be in units of velocity, volumetric or mass flowrate.

Critical velocity in a producing gas well has been defined originally by Turner et al. as the gas velocity to carry small droplets of liquid upward. If you try to produce below the predicted value, the droplets are predicted to fall in the well and accumulate in the tubing and create liquid loading problems. Correlations such as Turner et at., Coleman et al, and results from Shell are compared. It is shown that at low pressures, projections for the required critical velocity differ the most.

Over 40% of natural gas production in the United States over the next 20 to 25 years is projected to come from "Unconventional Gas" sources. These consist of coal beds, shales and low permeability sandstones and carbonates. Unconventional gas producers are as susceptible to wellbore damage as conventional. Scales, formation fill and organic deposits are probable. Therefore cleanout of these wellbores is as critical to maintaining production. The problem is that loss of fluid on these reservoirs during such an operation can shut-down totally the gas production.

Two techniques have been applied to exploratory well air drilling operations. These include air coring and operating the Dynadrill with air. The purpose is to maintain the ability to air drill below cored intervals and/or after making directional corrections or whipstock operations. Application of these techniques has allowed drilling the remaining footage of hole with air, at an increased penetration rate when compared with fluid, and thus reduce overall well cost.

The MSDU 1 (Mary Scharbauer Devonian Unit No. 1) was completed in December 1998. It was Mobil Drilling Midland's first attempt to drill a horizontal lateral while underbalanced. The Mary Scharbauer experience provided valuable data on the benefits and drawbacks of UBD (Underbalanced Drilling) in the extended reach environment. Increasing ROP in order to reduce cost was the primary goal of the MSDUl project. Increases in ROP from UBD were apparent when optimal bottom hole pressure was achieved.

Construction design and operating procedures for underground injection of brine waters are receiving more attention as the industry progresses toward full implementation of the provisions of the EPA Underground Injection Control regulations. Specific problems common to most injection well design and operation are discussed including casing and cementing programs, injectivity testing and reservoir performance calculations. Special emphasis is placed upon limiting surface injection pressures to avoid such hazards as invasion of potable water reservoirs.

This paper is presented as a reference for drilling. washing and completion of storage wells in the Salado Salt Section of the Eastern New Mexico-West Texas Area. The discussion and recommendations expressed herein are based on the experiences and problems encountered by the El Paso Natural Gas Products Company in its operation of the Odessa complex LPG storage wells.

Gas interference continues to be one of the major operating problems in pumping wells. In order to combat this problem effectively, we need a better understanding of what the pump volumetric efficiency should be under various well subsurface conditions Once we know how the pump should perform, it will be possible to select the best setting depth and determine whether a gas anchor is needed. Care must be used in the selection and in the installation of gas anchors, otherwise the results will be disappointing.

As the cost of maintenance of gas transmission lines and plant maintenance at gas gathering sites has increased, the detection and control of 02, H2S, and CO, has become an important issue in cost controls and safety. Even though the actual costs related to the presence of these elements isn"t known exactly, the cost per location is estimated to be in the millions of dollars annually. The corrosion-related cost to the transmission pipeline industries is estimated to be between $5 billion and $8 billion annually.

As CO2 miscible flooding becomes commonplace in our industry, more and more emphasis is given to gas dehydration and corrosion control in CO2 handling systems. This paper deals with the design of CO2/methane dehydration facilities, related metallurgical considerations, and the sizing of contact towers and reboilers to meet the varying CO2 concentration expectancies.

Artificial neural networks (ANN) are computer programs designed to mimic the functioning of the human brain. ANNs can be designed to "learn" by reviewing a data set consisting of a set of known inputs and a corresponding set of desired outputs. Once an ANN has been trained, it can predict outputs given just the set of known inputs. While the applications are broad reaching, one valuable application of such tools is in petroleum exploration.

Recent inflation has caused many in the industry to try and develop methods to improve the efficiency of their well repair programs. BP America, in cooperation with Key Energy, has begun a pilot program in SENM that couples existing KeyView data with a basic root cause perspective to deepen the understanding of service rig delays. This paper will discuss in general terms, the capability of the KeyView data capturing system, and in specific terms, how the available data was adapted to challenge assumptions about service rig delay times.

Gas lift is a flexible and forgiving form of artificial lift. Gas lift is so flexible that many installations for offshore platform wells are designed and the retrievable gas lift valve mandrels are installed during initial well completion. Efficient gas lift operations can be anticipated from installation designs based on limited well performance data by avoiding excessive distance between valve depths. The daily production rate from most gas lift installations depends upon the well deliverability and the available injection gas pressure and rate.

It is the purpose of this paper to discuss several chamber gas lift installations in which the chamber operation produced more fluid than anticipated. Several unusual installations are reviewed.

Increasing wellbore complexity and increasing pressure to improve drilling economics has necessitated increased focus on preventing lost circulation. This has required a close focus on wellbore stability and improvements in wellbore strength such that losses are minimized or alternately casing strings may be eliminated. In addition the drilling of depleted zones in the same section as normally pressured formations has led to increased focus on maintaining wellbore integrity and minimizing losses.

This paper presents two field case histories from multiyear horizontal completion projects in west Texas that were very successful at exposing the "false economy" of not cementing casing in horizontal wells drilled in low-permeability reservoirs. Moderate increases of 20 to 25% in initial well costs yielded a 3- to 10-fold increase in discounted cash flow through improved hydrocarbon recoveries. Case histories are developed for adjoining wells with similar reservoir characteristics and differing completion techniques.

Problems related to paraffin and asphaitenes continue to plague the oil and gas Industry. These include solid deposits, stabilization of emulsions and sludge production"'. Common solvents and condensates are popular treatments for dissolving and/or controlling paraffin and asphaltene related problems. Typically, these fluids have been used with little regard for long term effectiveness and formation damage consequences. Unique condensate feedstocks with high multiple aromatic content were identified.