It is important to know the cause of sucker rod failures so that the cause can be eliminated or guarded against. This paper presents numerous illustrations of the most common forms of sucker rod failures and explains the cause of these failures. Corrosion is the greatest cause of sucker rod failure and the bulk of the illustrations are of sucker rods that have been damaged by corrosion. A brief description of the basic corrosion process is included.

The most common type of sucker rod failures (pin failures) can be reduced by application of load range effects. This paper introduces a simple graph which can be used as a guide to limit peak loads based on load range for increased sucker rod service life.

There are very few papers that present the actual fatigue data for various grades of sucker rods from a variety of manufactures. This paper will provide information on the testing being conducted by one sucker rod manufacturer and the performance of high strength API D grade rods versus non-API extra high strength rods for air fatigue in rotary bending tests. Additionally, information will be provided on the relevance of these results and on the next phases of fatigue testing that is being planned.

This paper discusses the history of rod guides, early attempts in their development, types of guides presently available, a study of the proper use of guides, and a recommended procedure for placement of guides.

This presentation will provide a review of published information where sucker rod lift has been used to produce highly deviated and horizontal wells. Additionally, some useful recommended practices from equipment suppliers will be included on design, selection, and changes to consider for rod lift equipment when used to produce horizontal versus vertical wells.

Most sucker rod pin and coupling failures are considered to be related to loose couplings. Correct pin prestress offers the best way to prevent loose couplings and the "circumferential displacement" method offers the best way to achieve correct pin pre-stress.

This paper discusses the many types of balls and seats that the industry has to offer for varied well conditions, and also explains the proper use of plungers, barrels, tubes, cages, and other accessories. Pump parts destroyed by corrosion and abrasion are displayed, as well as sample pumps constructed to resist such attack.

Presentation will cover care and handling best practices for a sucker rod pump from the pump shop to the well bore and introduce a new tool for safely lifting a sucker rod pump from horizontal to vertical at the well head. For years, long and heavy insert pumps have been lifted into the vertical position to be run into the well by various means, some causing damage to the pump and contributing to failures. In most cases this process places undo stress on the rig crew, as they have to support the entire weight of the pump while it is lifted and it places them under a suspended load. These safety concerns can be reduced with the use of this tool and recommended procedures.

One of the principal causes of subsurface failures is corrosion. Corrosivity of well fluids is primarily related to hydrogen sulfide and/or carbon dioxide gases in the produced water. Optimum utilization of corrosive-resistant materials for component parts of sucker rod pumps has been the more economical practice in Exxon's operation as compared with the use of corrosion inhibitors and less expensive metals. Past performance of pump part metals was studied to provide guidelines in upgrading the pump part metallurgy. Using a computerized data bank, over 8,000 pump runs were analyzed from 26 major folds within the West Texas and Oklahoma areas, most of which contained hydrogen sulfide in the produced fluid. General guidelines for pump part metals selection were established. The study indicated that average pump part service of at least I2 months should be expected with proper metallurgy selection.

Sucker Rod pumping as it is used in today's oil field, evolved from the waterwell wooden sucker. Early history includes rope used for lifting water in irrigation systems. Increasing rod string performance lift through manufacturing quality control, proper string design, correct handling and control of environment.

For more than ten years the Petroleum Industry has used and benefited from a Reliability Information and Failure Tracking System for electrical submersible pumping (ESP-RIFTS). More recently another RIFTS system for progressing cavity pumping (PCP-RIFTS) has proven to be beneficial to participating members. At the 2010 Sucker Rod Pumping Workshop, discussion started about developing a RIFTS project for sucker rod pumping. This is now about to become a reality. The RIFTS systems collect and store information on pumping systems and system failures. This information is tracked to discover different types of failures and failure mechanisms. Companies that are members of the RIFTS Joint Industry Project (JIP) can search this information to determine which system components work best in differing conditions. They can determine which metallurgies or system suppliers are more effective in specific situations. They can benchmark their equipment and processes vs. others.
Participation in the JIP's created for the development of ESP-RIFTS and PCP-RIFTS has been limited to Operating Companies. However, for the Sucker Rod Pumping

Reduction of preventable problems inherent in beam pumping systems can be achieved by continuous monitoring of system loads with electronic equipment and software systems developed by Delta-X Corporation. Electronic monitoring equipment was developed for permanent installation on electric prime mover driven beam pumping units. This equipment provides instantaneous polish rod load versus stroke position data. The equipment's self-monitoring mode allows the pumpoff controller (DXI-30) to interpret polish rod load versus displacement and make a logic decision to shut the well down for a predetermined time when a pumped-off condition is detected. Rod parts and other major downhole problems are also detected and result in setting of an alarm and shutting down the unit until visually inspected and manually restarted. Interfacing capacity is designed into the system to allow plotting load versus position data with a dynamometer or the storing of such data, for later retrieval, in an electronic memory card. These data may be later recalled, using a computer program, to recreate a dynamometer card shape, calculate gearbox torque, and/or a downhole pump card. Introduction of the new DXI-40 microprocessor controller with a communication system allows remote access to all load data. System control can also be effected from a remote location.

QRod is the most widely used program for the design and prediction of the performance of Sucker Rod Beam Pumping Installations. A damped wave equation solution is used to accurately predict the surface dynamometer loads, gearbox torque and pump capacity, with a minimum amount of input. New design tools have been added to include: 1) Slippage Calculator from pump clearances ties the pump efficiency to the predicted pump displacement. 2) Sinker Bar length calculator determines the sinker bar length as pump diameter or pump depth chances. 3) Results can be shown in any system of units. 4) Dynamometer measured surface DYN files can be imported and plotted on top of the predicted dynamometer card. QRod's objective is to help the beam pumping system designer implement state of the art design technology without getting buried with details. Changing a parameter such as tubing anchor, stroke length, stroke rate, or pump diameter is immediately seen in the dynamically updated plots.

The concept of pneumatic actuation of a sucker rod string in a pumping well is not new or revolutionary. There are records of patents and applications dating back to the late 1800"s. These early units did not find wide acceptance due to problems of low efficiency, seal wear and leakage. Also, these early units were restricted in depth capacity to about 4000 feet maximum in most cases. There are surface pneumatic pumping units available today that overcome the problems of lew efficiency and seal failure by using new concepts in system control and entirely new seal materials and seal technology. This paper deals with the system design and field application of the most popular of the new generation of pneumatic oilwell pumping units. Applications discussed range from dewatering 1000ft gas wells at 3 BPD to pumping 10,000~ft oil wells at 200 BPD.

ConocoPhillips San Juan Business Unit rod pumps more than 50 "S" shaped deviated wells. The load a sucker rod applies to the tubing wall is called sideload. Sideloads will be higher in the depth intervals of the tubing that are more deviated. The time requred to wear the sucker rod or tubing to failure should be a function of sideload. ConocoPhillips San Juan's "S" shaped rod pumped wells have shallow curved sextions that tend to have sideloads of one hundred pounds or greater, and many have been running for several years. ConocoPhillips presents sideload vs. running time data for their longer running wells, and learnings from two "S" well repairs completed in early 2012.

The oil and gas production organizations have used the service factors applied to sucker rod string allowable loads and stresses for many years. However, many have used the service factor described in API RP 11BR1 only to reduce the maximum allowable stress since they are operating in corrosive service. This paper will discuss the development of the service factors and provide recommendations not limiting the rod loading by using a derating factor.

Paraffin Accumulation in the tubing of pumping oil wells has been a costly problem since the beginning of the oil industry. Some fields have a severe paraffin problem while others do not have enough paraffin accumulation to ever restrict the production of the wells. Each field has a different paraffin problem all its own. The accepted use of sucker rod type paraffin scrapers to remove paraffin from pumping oil wells is relatively new to the industry. Sucker rod type paraffin scrapers became popular between 1946 and 1950.

Two new developments are eliminating costly sucker rod pin failures. The first is the undercut or stress relieved pin which eliminates the critical point where all fatigue failures occur. The second is the thread rolling process which improves the fatigue resistance of the thread.

I am not going to announce a new break through to end all POC failures. If you want to hear God laugh, tell him about your new 10-year plan or solution to end all lightning damage. My goal today is to show some incremental steps we have taken to reduce costs and improve reliability. This is a preliminary report. This is not mature technology tested with a large number of devices through many storm seasons. Some background is needed for perspective.

This paper presents a discussion of the basic problem caused by sulfate reducing bacteria in oil producing, salt water disposal, and secondary recovery water injection systems. It outlines methods of detecting the presence of these harmful bacteria, and describes their role in corrosion and well plugging.

After five years of waterflooding, the West Welch (San Andres) Unit was experiencing acute production declines caused by calcium sulphate scale forming in the producing wells. A program was initiated at that time to investigate the cause of the scale growth and means of correcting it. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the field and laboratory work done to inhibit and remove CaSO4, scale from the producing wells in this waterflood. Evaluation of scale inhibitors and methods of applying them are covered as well as scale removal chemicals and procedures. In gathering and interpreting data a new use of an old tool, the caliper survey, was initiated with good success. Most of this work has been done in the last 1- 1/2 years and it is not yet considered finished as other questions must be answered for a long term and lasting conclusion.

The Harbison-Fischer Variable Slippage Pump, (VSP), has been field tested since December 1999 in wells located primarily in West Texas and New Mexico. Results have been favorable in gas locking conditions by eliminating gas locking, and increasing gas production in some wells. This paper will review the test data and the characteristics of these wells. It will also describe the fundamentals of this method of artificial lift, and present what was learned about pump component selection and downhole applications.

During the early 1960's much work was done with compressive pre-stressing of material used in oilfield equipment to overcome fatigue problems which had plagued the industry for years. The API adopted the undercut-thread sucker rod pin design to overcome pin failures which had become a serious problem as sucker rod loads increased. The undercut pin design made it possible to produce the threads by rolling, with further increases in pin fatigue strength. Micro-hardness profiles were run on these new pins, and it was found that on a typical API Class C normalized sucker rod, the hardness at the thread root had increased significantly. At a depth of about 0.001 of an inch from the surface of the thread root, the hardness value was approximately 34 on the Rockwell C scale; at 0.002 it was about 30.3 Rc: at 0.004 it was about 25.5 Rc and so on to a depth of about 0.012 of an inch where it leveled out at a Brine11 hardness of about 185. Photomicrographs proved some of the success of the new API pin could be attributed to the compressive prestress of the thread root.

The main purpose of surface strings is to keep the produced well fluids from migrating into and damaging the shallow water bearing formations. In the Indian Basin Field in southern New Mexico (Eddy County), an operator was encountering severe lost circulation intervals which made properly cementing the surface strings extremely difficult. Several expensive annular top out stages were required to fill the annulus with cement adequate to protect the groundwater and isolate this interval from oil and gas produced from the drilling of the deeper horizons. After discussion with the service company and the New Mexico Oil & Gas Commission, an unorthodox method of cementing surface strings was successfully tried and adopted to solve this problem. This method included using conventional cement foamed with nitrogen to achieve a properly cemented annulus without the need for annular top out jobs. This paper will detail how this problem was successfully addressed.

Magion deposition is a new process by which virtually any material may be tightly bonded to nearly any other material for any reason. This process uniquely utilizes ionization phenomena to impart high energy to the atoms of plating material whereby bonding is assured by penetration of these high energy depositant ions into the outer atomic surface of the object to be plated, which is referred to as the "substrate". In the actual working of the process, which is performed in a vacuum system, the plating material is vaporized yielding a continuous flux of atomic sized vapor atoms. These atoms become ionized by a twofold mechanism, collision with electrons spiraling in a magnetic field as well as by resonance with photons in a radio frequency (rf) transmission field. The t-f field also has the beneficial effect of building a negative charge on non conductors present in the field. This causes both conducting and non-conducting substrates to become attractive targets for the high energy, accelerating ions. This allows for the process to treat both metals and elastomers as equals. The three dimensional properties of the process are unusually good. One of the first arenas for success was the plating of electronic components such as semiconductors and printed circuits where through hole or side step coverage can be of paramount importance." This thin film process eliminates over a dozen wet chemistry plating steps in device manufacture resulting in a superior product at a much lower cost. Perhaps the biggest bonus of all is the elimination of wet chemistry waste products that must be disposed of at a very high cost. Contemporaneous with the advancement of the Magion process has been metallurgies appropriate for the specific problems at hand. The development of specific metallurgies, most not capable of deposition in the right alloy form by any process, was essentially necessary before the Magion process could be employed to yield a finished product. One gauge of success to date is to note the current licensees and their field of usage. Many of these will be discussed at length in the body of this paper. An important consideration will be protection of the environment that this technology offers. The best way of dealing with pollution is to remove the source of its generation. New developments in elastomeric seal technology aid in pollution control.