Artificial Lift

There are many potential failures in production wells which result from corrosive downhole environments, mechanical aspects of artificial lift or a combination thereof. Tubing failures constitute a costly failure mechanism in production wells. Tubing inspections can provide valuable insight on the condition of tubing as well as the distinction between causes of tubing degradation. This information...

When optimizing a reciprocating rod lift installation, key control parameters must be extracted from the downhole data. Traditionally, downhole data in the form of position and load data is derived from surface data using the wave equation. Downhole position and load data must be carefully analyzed to extract key control parameters for reciprocating rod lift optimization. IRIS introduces a new and...

The Artificial Lift Intake Isolation (ALII) tool is a new technology for rod pumping wells that when activated isolates the production tubing. The tool provides positive well control prior to breaking wellhead containment providing significant cost savings, safety and environmental protection. The tool is a simple two-part system, the first being the valve portion which is run just below the...

A hydrodynamic analysis for different rod guide designs simulating downhole fluid conditions was made using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis, which is widely used for solving the partial differential equations of fluid motion by discrete approximation.  A particular turbulence kinetic energy graphic for each guide sample was created and compared to each other. The results shows a...

The cavitation phenomenon has been extensively studied for many years, however, guidelines on how to implement this existing knowledge to the actual operation of the jet pumping systems in the oilfield are not abundant and, as per the author can see it, not yet being presented in such way that the people that operate these systems in the oilfield could implement on a straight forward way. It has...

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the history of different gas lift design methods and the theory behind a new design method.  In January 2019, Production Lift Companies and Concho Resources ran a new gas lift design method in two unconventional wells in the Permian Basin.  This new method is designed to exploit the initial high bottom hole pressure in unconventional wells to produce higher...

Variable Frequency Drives (VFD) are a well-known method of pumping beam wells. By running the well continuously and adjusting pumping speed based on pump fillage, they provide unique benefits to reduce failures in difficult environments as compared to operating in pump-off control (POC); these environments might include solids, buckling tendencies at pump-off, and CO2 WAG environments. Although...

The ESP system is a mechanical/electrical/hydrodynamic system. It is costly when it fails as the tubing has to be pulled and much or all of the equipment is replaced.  This paper points out tips in the below various areas that if considered are likely to increase the average run life of ESP Systems

-Failure definitions from data -Design -Installation -SCADA-Monitoring -Tips for running in Harsh...

The Apache-operated Adair San Andres Unit (ASAU) currently employs fifteen capillary string (cap string) equipped producing wells, representing 16% of the active producer count. Apache started converting producing wells to cap strings in 2016.  This idea was introduced to Apache at the 2012 CO2 Conference in Midland and later reinforced during a field tour of Whiting’s North Ward Estes CO2 flood...

Dog Leg Severity (DLS) had been used for many decades as recommendations to try to drill oil and gas wells and provide "trouble free" operating conditions. Many of these recommendations were historically based on vertical, shallow (5000 ft.) deep wells. But as wells continued to be drilled deeper, the recommendations were still applied. With the current drilling and operating practices of...