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Producers can spend a significant amount of money repairing a sucker rod pump system without fully understanding the root cause of a failure. Incomplete, missing or incorrect data and over reliance on a supplier to “fix the problem” can be ineffective. Following “best practices” developed in other fields or generic “rules of thumb” may also lead to higher than expected failure rate especially in...

Pressure maintenance is a secondary oil recovery method which involves injecting another immiscible fluid (e.g. water) to support the oil sweep from a depleting zone. Through reservoir simulation, Tately NV Company attempts to evaluate the benefit of pressure maintenance through water injection on oil recovery from one of its zones in its field in Indonesia. This is because in this particular zone, the pressure around some of its producers has depleted severely after only the first few years of production.

The shale revolution in the continental United States has reinvigorated the Oil and Gas Industry. According to the EIA, shale plays account for around 49% of total U.S. crude oil production. Although much progress has been made to be more efficient time and money wise; there are still technical issues that are being addressed.

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation operates numerous deep water production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). In a continuing effort to maximize production and the recovery efficiency of existing assets, Anadarko has invested heavily into researching effective methods and practices of remediating asphaltene inhibited wells in a bid to offset premature well decline. 

There are 3 ways that was used to make packers: inflatables, Hydro-mechanical, and swellables. Using Expandable Steel as the reinforcement of a sealing system is an innovation that allows unseen features to the market. A long history of using Expandable Steel in Casing Patch operations allowed Saltel Industries to develop unique ways to create isolation systems with expanded metals.

There is so much data being collected on each well site increasing the success to a company’s maintenance programs.  When wellbore surveys identify hole deviations those specific areas can be targeted as potential premature failure points. These critical points down hole are many times 

Wax deposition in offshore and onshore pipeline is one of the significant current flow assurance problem.  There are several wax deposition models proposed in the literature.  However, all of them are validated based on the limited number of data and have not been crosschecked with other researchers’ data.  All of wax deposition model on turbulent flow contain the unknown physical parameters which required in wax deposition prediction.  

The Permian Basin (PB) presents many challenges in the development of unconventional plays, such as varying pore pressures, high treating pressures, and geological uncertainty. These challenges intensify in areas that are not well developed or understood. A collaborative partnership between the operator and service provider can significantly reduce such risks.

A new technique of delivering long-lasting treatment for damaging well conditions, such as scales, corrosion, or organic deposits, has been achieved using a novel technology. This new technology involves a viscoelastic, biopolymer-hydrogel as the matrix to incorporate and transport chemicals into the formation. When placed in the fracture length, the porous matrix controls the release of the treatment agent over long period of time.

Traditionally, ball-drop completion systems were limited not only by application, but by pressure, rates, and stage count. This paper shows the history of the ball-drop completion systems in the Permian Basin and looks at how the development of new technology has allowed ball-drop systems to be used in more than just open hole applications, as well as how this technology has overcome the aforementioned limitations.

Around the world, the focus of completing and stimulating wells has been based mainly on the efficiency of the completions and stimulation. While this is sound, too little focus has been paid to where the oil, gas and water is originating. Enormous opportunities abound to go back into these wells and evaluate them to determine the best candidates and zones to refrac.

Today, E&P companies are being challenged to improve economic performance. Since completions are a major cost, it is imperative to improve completion efficiency and maximize production results.  A new controlled approach to multistage completions combines predictable frac placement (spacing and propped volume) with bottom-hole pressure and temperature data recorded during stimulation to enable progressive, formation-specific optimization of stimulation designs and frac delivery.

The Set a Seat is a tool that has been developed by Peak Completions Technologies that has reduced the cost of post frac operations.  Using Peaks patented technology, the Set a Seat make it possible to open up the well head and begin producing with milling out plugs. 

This paper will discuss the need for the oil industry at all levels to broaden its perspective regarding how the concept of hydraulic fracturing is communicated to the public.  The current level of communication is so narrowly focused that groups outside of the industry have been able to exploit this communication problem to the detriment of the industry.   This paper will discuss specific examples of the  communication problem and the corresponding economic and political impacts on the industry.

Treating for paraffin in rod pumped wells is a critical operating cost driver that needs continuing attention.  While there are various prevention chemicals, operators still need periodic removal interventions.  This paper will summarize prior investigations regarding the removal of paraffin and provide a case history that illustrates the issues.

Ion selective electrodes (ISE) can accurately measure the strength of hydrogen fluoride (HF) acids used for acidizing jobs. The accurate measurement of free fluoride generated from the hydrolysis reaction, especially with weaker organic acids, is important to ensure that the desired acid fluid strength is delivered downhole during well stimulation operations. 

Tight oil reservoirs have become one of the main forces of oil reserves and production growth. Tight oil reservoirs are mostly developed by natural depletion. Only 5 % to 15 % of the oil can be recovered using natural deletion. Further improve of oil recovery of tight oil reservoir can be achieved by Appling miscible gas flooding process. This paper shows the feasibility of Appling miscible gas flooding as a method of enhancing oil recovery of tight oil reservoirs.

The purpose of this study is to observe the effects of superabsorbent polymers AT-O3S and 2G-110 when introduced to brine solutions with varying pH values.  The polymer is intended to swell in order to block high permeability zones in existing oil wells.  The swelled polymer will decrease reservoir heterogeneity, diverting injected water to the oil rich zones/areas. Understanding the kinetics of the SAPs are crucial to their proper employment.

Excess water production is a wide-spread and costly issue in the oil and gas industry. Polymer gel water shutoff treatments provide a valuable means of decreasing water production and reducing operating costs; however, successful treatments are dependent upon selecting viable candidate wells. The industry has long sought a reliable means of identifying wells to target with polymer gel treatments. Most studies into this problem have looked into a potential link between formation permeability and the success of treatments.

The theoretical studies and experimental data of two-phase flow hydrodynamics currently available are mainly for the case of horizontal, inclined, and vertical flows.  There are some developments to understand the two- and three-phase flow hydrodynamics on the hilly-terrain and the severe-slugging in both onshore and offshore cases.  Yet, for the cases of horizontal well with the production tubing inside, the impact of the tubing location in the horizontal well at the curve section (the connection between the vertical and horizontal sections) are not

The mission of the Texas Board of Professional Engineers (Board) is to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the people in Texas by ensuring that the practice of engineering in the state is carried out only by those persons who are proven to be qualified and by regulating the practice of Professional Engineering in Texas. 

The values that can be obtained from understanding what problems or needs are required in resolving existing well performance are often not taken into account when applying solution treatments. Upfront in Best Practices, Diagnostics may be required to (A) identify well integrity issues, define the various well or reservoir conditions, or they may be needed to (B) define and develop a solution required to fix the various understood problems that may occur.

The field trial is focused on utilizing a pilot valve to obtain low instantaneous FBHP for low rate, low reservoir pressure horizontal wells. The pilot valve system is an alternative use for a positive displacement pump application. The presentation will cover the operation and use of the pilot valve. As well as cover well application and total fluid rate recovery expected while on pilot valve intermittent service. Operational fixes, and improvements will be discussed and shown as a means to improve efficiency and reduce % loss during intermittent cycles.

In the West Texas Delaware Basin, at Anadarko, we are very early in our development of the Bone Spring & Wolfcamp formations. Our current artificial lift strategy is to use gas lift or jet pump as intermediate lift, followed by rod pump. We implement these methods of artificial lift to produce high total fluid volumes and reduce downhole failures. This presentation covers what we have learned so far and the questions that remain to be answered as we determine the most effective way to produce these wells.

This paper will be on the use of high liquid volume plunger lift in the Permian Basin.  This method of lift was first considered in an effort to bridge the gap for taking high liquid volume wells from flowing to rod pump.  Historically in the Permian Basin this was accomplished with high cost electric submersible pumps, gas lift or rod pump.  One of the criteria for success was that plunger lift would be able to economically maintain a well on its natural decline.  Representative decline curves will be presented, along with operating pressu