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Significant advances have recently been made in laboratory attempts to measure realistic fracture conductivity values for proppants at reservoir conditions. This paper will give a brief overview of recent work throughout the industry related to conductivity testing, and efforts being made to simulate the environment of fracturing proppants during a well's producing life. Also presented will be data showing that test results can be significantly different when using wet gas as the flowing medium following a short period of flowing brine water.

The scope of this paper includes a brief introduction about On-Off tool, design and construction, their applications, operational procedures, and general load carrying capabilities. The paper discusses some advantages gained by installing an On-Off tool such as, the ability to repair or replace the rod string without unseating the pump, the ability to break the sucker rod string just above the pump eliminating stripping job and the ability to run oversized tubing pumps.

The concept of using chemical additives to reduce drag or friction of fluids flowing in turbulence has been a well-known phenomenon for many years. It has been the subject of several papers both in and outside the petroleum industry. There are many stimulation treatments now being performed which would be virtually impossible were it not for friction-reducing chemicals present in the stimulation fluids. Even small-volume acid washes done through small-diameter tubing or coiled tubing units utilize friction-reducing chemicals.

This paper discusses the use of AutoCAD, a popular PC CAD (Computer Aided Design/Drafting) application package, for calculation and analysis of water flood injection profile data. By heavily utilizing the customizing capability of the AutoCAD .program, calculational accuracy and repeatability are enhanced. Additionally, the well log analyst is able to more readily verify and validate assumptions during the interactive data analysis phase. The theory and application of profile analysis will be discussed: included are example calculations.

This paper discusses the use of AutoCAD, a popular PC CAD (Computer Aided Design/Drafting) application package, for calculation and analysis of water flood injection profile data. By heavily utilizing the customizing capability of the AutoCAD program, calculational accuracy and repeatability are enhanced. Additionally, the well log analyst is able to more readily verify and validate assumptions during the interactive data analysis phase. The theory and application of profile analysis will be discussed: included are example calculations.

This paper presents the practice of using downstream chokes in unloading injection pressure operated (IPO) gas-lift valves. The practice helps to assure effective unloading and may provide protection against erosion damage during the unloading process. It has several other benefits that are discussed in the paper. A gas-lift valve/choke model has been developed. It provides accurate predictions of the gas passage through the choked valve during the unloading process.

Coatings of various materials are used to improve corrosion, abrasion and scaling resistance of ESP components. This paper will briefly discuss some of the coatings with a focus on Teflon and it's potential to increase run time. A specific application will be discussed in detail. A completely coated pump was run between uncoated pumps in a New Mexico well that produces significant solids. The well was pulled after a 224-day run and all pumps torn down and examined. This paper will review the findings of the tear down and implications for future Teflon coating applications and tests.

Due to encountered influxes of water while attempting to gain consolidation around wellbores and/or their tubulars, cement can have difficulty in achieving the needed sealing and preventative state necessary for zonal isolation. High influxes of water present across these areas needing remediation can deteriorate the cement at any state from its being placed through the time it takes it to form and develop enough strength to resist this environment.

As fluids are produced from a reservoir, zones of higher permeability and correspondingly higher flow rates create channels for the preferential movement of fluids.

By coupling the communications power of the internet with the latest in reservoir simulation technology, it is now feasible to direct oil and gas field development in near real-time, using a continuously updated computer model that matches and reflects the actual rates and pressure data observed in the field. While quarterly or monthly updates are probably sufficient in most cases, operators have the option of updating the model weekly or even daily in order to meet the needs of each situation.

Operators have stimulated and produced from the Yates and Queen formations in Ward and Winkler counties for 38 years. The field was discovered in 1968 and has been explored, developed, bought and sold for several cycles. Each operator developed the field to different degrees. The paper will is a part one of what has been done in the past and what is being done currently. Technology used will be included. This encompasses new or improved additives and engineering modeling tools used today by the service company to optimize production.

This paper describes the use of electrical submersible pumping systems (ESP"s) with portable variable frequency drives (VFD"s) to perform step-rate testing on multi lateral horizontal producing oil wells in the 4 - Corners area of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. A major Operator drilled and completed several of these multi lateral wells in the area. High volume ESP's were installed due to the success of the multi lateral concept and resultant high producing rates.

Continuous increase in worldwide brown-field activity and overall depletion of current gas fields has renewed focus on maximizing gas production from existing wells. In most gas wells, water and/or condensate is produced along with gas. As gas wells mature, decreasing formation pressure and gas velocities gradually impair the well resulting in production declines due to the inability to lift these fluids. Current operational strategies use plunger lift, ESP, additional compressors, or intermittent production techniques to build reservoir pressure and produce fluids from these wells.

Infrared imaging (IR) can be a useful tool in the oil and gas industry. At ChevronTexaco, IR is used as a proactive maintenance tool in our oil and gas producing facilities and plants. IR was first introduced in the 1980's as a tool to inspect electrical systems for loose or bad connections on overhead distribution systems and overheating equipment, mainly motors and transformers.

In most fields today, operators are asked to do more with less. The common theme is; keep production up and expenses down. This paper describes the results experienced in several fields in Texas that are using an integrated software tool for production field automation. The combination of the right personnel and the right software has provided an environment where production costs are reduced and total production is increased.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an engineering tool to the Oil and Gas Industry that will plot and monitor downhole failures by type of failure (Tubing Leaks, Rod Parts and Pump Repairs), by depth of failure and by date of failure. Utilizing Microsoft Excel Software to build this engineering tool provides to the user spreadsheet software that is utilized throughout the Oil and Gas Industry, easily electronically transported and does not require excessive technical support. Use of this engineering tool will provide you the opportunity to visually analysis the following: 1.

Polyethylene lined (polylined) tubing has been in service throughout West Texas several years. This paper reviews the experiences of one field where use of polylined tubing began in 2000 in one well and was then extended to other wells in efforts to mitigate high tubing failures. The data contained here in reviews the pre and post tubing failure rates of the about 40 wells, and reviews the salvages of tubing in a few select wells discussing their reduction in lost tubing value per day.

Traditionally Pump Off Controllers (POC"s) have been used to monitor wells for fluid pound. However, signals generated by properly maintained quantitative POC systems can be utilized for a variety of monitoring and production optimization activities. Typically the POC's used in quantitative analysis consist of a load measurement sensor, a position sensor and a control box to collect data. In addition, in centralized systems, a communications device (i.e. radio transmitter) is used to communicate to a modem equipped computer workstation.

Optimization of production from a reservoir produced by artificial lift can take weeks or months. The process typically involves gathering and amalgamation of operating data, then manual analysis of the data in software packages to find optimization opportunity.
To streamline and enhance this process, each artificially lifted well in the reservoir was equipped with an intelligent data processing device programmed with a real time model of the well. The processors were linked to a central access point where the operation of field could be remotely viewed in real time.

Recent studies have shown that in many instances large fluid volumes can be lifted by sucker rods with great effectiveness, from shallow to medium depth wells. Wherever this is feasible, significant reduction in cost of elevating a barrel of fluid may be realized by the operator. The advent of longer stroke units with improved geometry, larger speed reducers and bottom-hole pumps, as well as the new high strength sucker rods, have combined to make high volume rod pumping a practical and economical achievement.

The fatigue life of a reinforced plastic sucker rod is controlled by minimum stress, the stress range, and the operating temperature. The diagram, Figure 1, is part of API Specification 11C. For any minimum stress found on line 0-1, a peak allowable stress is found directly above on line A-P. If a well is operating at 100 percent of this allowable range with an operating temperature of 160F, it should cycle 7,500,000 times before expected first failure. Column B and Column D allow the stress range to be modified for different life expectancies and different operating temperatures.

Using spectral gamma ray imaging to identify issues of fracture stimulation placement has been well documented and enhanced by providing methods to interpret inside or near wellbore phenomena as well as fracturing phenomena occurring within 25 inches of the wellbore. Recent studies by Robinson and Voneiff have confirmed that in most vertical or near vertical wells, fracture heights determined by tracers are equivalent to or within ten percent of fracture heights predicted by 3D models or post-fracture treatment performance testing.

Many production engineers are beginning to use three-dimensional (3-D) fracture propagation models to design and analyze hydraulic fracture treatments. To use a 3-D model, one must define the layers that comprise the reservoir and develop detailed datasets that accurately describe the layers. The data that are critical for designing and analyzing hydraulic fracture treatments are in-situ stress, formation permeability, formation porosity, reservoir pressure, and Young's modulus. Many times, these parameters can be determined from logs and/or correlated to lithology.

Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) technology has been employed in a wide variety of applications in many industries in recent years. Application of VFD to the rod pumping system has allowed pumping speed to be adjusted in real time by the POC, eliminated sheave changes as well conditions change, reduced power consumption, and allowed continuous pumping of wells producing formation solids. This paper will review the installation, operation, benefits and economics of installations on new and existing wells at several locations in West Texas operated by BP America

Absolute permeability is a property of the rock only, while effective perm is a property of the rock and the fluids present in the rock. In the most general sense, permeability used in the petroleum industry is a constant in Darcy's flow equation that equates flow rate, pressure gradient, and fluid properties. Even though a formation has a permeability regardless if it is flowing or not, by this definition a direct measurement of permeability requires a dynamic process not a static process.