Subsurface Equipment/Artificial Lift: Maximizing Production from the Well

f there is sufficient reservoir pressure to lift fluids to the surface, newly completed oil wells can be expected to flow for years before increased water production and/or decreased gas/liquid ratios make it necessary to place the well on some form of artificial lift in order to maximize its ultimate potential for production and profitability. Commonly used artificial-lift methods fall into two groups: those that use pumps and those that use gas. Pump-type methods use sucker-rod pumps, hydraulically operated pumps, electrical submergible centrifugal pumps, and progressive-cavity pumps to lift fluids. Gas lifting methods use injections of economically available gas to lighten the fluid column of a well and raise the fluid by expansion of the gas. Whatever means of artificial lift is chosen, the purpose is to maintain a reduced

producing bottomhole pressure so the formation fluids can flow into the wellbore and be delivered to the surface.1
When Nature Fails

When the formation drive mechanism fails, a well must be converted to a method of artificial lift that will enable it to continue to produce. However, considerable care must be taken to select the most appropriate lift method. In their book, The Technology of Artificial Lift Methods, Kermit Brown, John Day, Joe Byrd, and Joe Mach make it clear that a thorough understanding of the flowing well is necessary to determine when and how it should be placed on artificial lift. In its latter stages of flowing life, a well is capable of producing only a portion of the desired fluids. During this stage . . . and

particularly after the well dies, a suitable means of artificial lift must be installed so the required flowing bottomhole pressure can be maintained, the authors explain. Maintaining the required flowing bottomhole pressure is the basis for the design of any artificial lift installation; if a predetermined drawdown in the pressure can be maintained, the well will produce the desired fluids. This is true regardless of the type of lift installed. For more than a century, oilmen have been inventing, employing, and evolving various methods of artificial lift. An examination of all the different types of artificiallift methods ever employed would encompass volumes. Therefore, this article will concentrate on an examination of the history, evolution, significant events, and people responsible for todays most widely used artificial-lift methods.

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In the Beginning

In October, 1859, Colonel Edwin Drake rigged up a pump to produce an oil and water mixture a distance of ten feet to the surface.2 It was the worlds first commercial oil well and the first use of artificial lift to commercially produce oil. Today, 140 years later, downhole pumps are still the most popular method of producing oil and oil/water or oil/gas/water mixtures. In fact, pumps are employed in more than 80% of all artificial-lift wells; only the prime-mover mechanism differs.3
Beam Pumping

pitman arm, and the beam is supported by the Sampson post and the saddle bearing. The horses head and the bridleor the hanger cable arrangementare used to ensure that the pull on the sucker-rod string is vertical at all times so that no bending moment is applied to that part of the sucker-rod string above the stuffing box. The polished-rod and stuffing-box combination is used to maintain a good liquid seal at the surface.6
Sucker Rods

hole pumps represents the first use of a continuous sucker rod. The modern version of a continuous sucker rod is essentially a continuous length of steel used in the same way as conventional sucker rods to actuate either reciprocating rod pumps or rotary progressing-cavity pumps.7 By eliminating the rod couplings, the continuous sucker rod assists in optimizing well production and is ideal for horizontal or deviated wells where couplings would interfere with rod operation and fatigue could shorten the rods lifespan.
Sucker-Rod-Performance Prediction

The walking beam pump, the grandfather of todays counterbalanced oilfield pumping units, was an idea borrowed from the water-well industry. One end of a heavy wooden walking beam set on a pivot was attached by a stiff rod to a steam engine. Attached to the other end of the beam was a string of long, slender sucker rods, which were connected to a pump at the bottom of the well. The engine cranked the rod up and down and actuated the pump to pump oil to the surface. This method was employed until shortly after the turn of the century, when operators began demanding improvements in equipment and procedures. By the 1920s, the demand for better methods led the industry to focus on ways to improve the beam pumper.4 It was W.C. Trout who answered the call. Trout ran a small foundry and machining business in Lufkin, Texas, which served southeast Texas sawmill operators needing foundry and equipment-repair services. Trout saw the production of oilfield pumping units as a way of expanding the companys business. In 1925, in a field at Hull, Texas, Trout introduced his counterbalanced pumping unit.5 Major improvements of the Trout pump included the addition of a counterbalance weight and a worm-gear system to reduce the size of the engine needed to power the unit. Since its introduction, the Troutdesigned pump has become the dominant artificial-lift beam-pumping unit. Over the years, the basic principles of a beam-pumping unit havent changed much. The rotary motion of a crank arm is converted into oscillating motion by means of the walking beam. The crank arm is connected to the walking beam by means of a
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A sucker-rod string is the connecting link between the surface pumping unit and the subsurface pump located at, or near, the bottom of the oil well. The vertical motion of the surface pumping unit is transferred by the rods to the subsurface pump. Two types of rods are in use todaysteel and fiberglass-reinforced plastic rods. About 90% of those are steel rods. When sucker rods were first invented in the mid-1860s, they were made of wood, says Dean Hermanson in The Petroleum Engineering Handbook. The rods were fashioned from long wooden poles with metal ends bolted to the wooden rod. One of the first improvements involved the development of an all-metal rod. By 1880, the new iron sucker rods had replaced the wooden ones. Over the ensuing decades, the geometry of the rods remained relatively unchanged, but additional improvements were made in the surface finish, condition, end straightness, metallurgy and quality control to achieve increased performance and corrosion-resistance. The first fiberglass sucker rods appeared in the 1970s. They consisted of long parallel strands of fiberglass embedded in a plastic matrix. Steel fittings are mounted on the ends of the rods. Standard couplings join the rods together so the sucker-rod string can be made up. Fiberglass rods offer two distinct advantages over steel rodslighter weight and a lower modulus of elasticity. They are especially popular for wells with relatively high fluid levels where excessive rod stretch can destroy the efficiency of the installation. Another important improvement to the standard sucker rod also occurred in the l970s. It was the development of the continuous sucker rod. The idea wasnt new. It is believed that braided-wire cable used in early wells (circa 1860) to operate down-

Although seemingly simple, in field practice predicting the behavior of a beampump and sucker-rod system is surprisingly complex. In fact, this prediction is so complex it has received the attention of engineers and mathematicians for more than 60 years. During the mid-1950s, a group of major oil companies and equipment manufacturers (now the American Petroleum Inst.) was organized to investigate the complex behavior of a conventional pumping unit driving an elastic rod string. As a part of their effort, they began using electrical analog computers to simulate the sucker-rod system. By solving the wave equation as it applied to certain rod-pumping assumptions, the computer generated synthetic surface and bottomhole pump dynamometer cards. Data from these synthetic dynamometer cards were used to generate nondimensional design curves, which were then employed to develop predictive methods for sizing pumping units.8 In the late 1960s, S.G. Gibbs, a graduate student and math major, noted that British physicians were using computer models to maximize the analysis of electrocardiograms (EKGs). The computer would use mathematical equations to fully analyze the characteristic squiggles that are plotted by the EKG machine. Until this time, doctors had to interpret the EKG plot subjectively to determine the condition of the patients heart. Gibbs theorized that the same technique might be valuable in diagnosing the performance problems of artificial-lift equipment (submergible pumps, sucker rods, metering devices). I wanted to take the subjectivity out of problem solving, says Gibbs. I reasoned that if we could cast the sucker-rod
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wave equation into a general mathematical model of sucker-rod behavior similar to the way the British doctors did on the EKG plot, we could eliminate the costly trial and error methods (methodically pulling well equipment and checking each piece) being used at that time. By devising a reliable way of pinpointing a performance problem, we could confidently get a pulling unit and go out and fix the problem on the first try. What resulted was Gibbs sucker-rod diagnostic technique. The technique uses mathematical equations to model the elastic behavior of long sucker rod strings, says Gibbs. A computer takes the data and uses wave equations to model the performance of the wells artificial lift equipment and determine a solution for the wells problem. By solving the wave equation as it applied to sucker-rod pumping, Gibbs was able to simulate accurately and mathematically beam and sucker-rod pumping performance with any type of unit geometry operating under any given set of pumping conditions. It was a powerful achievement that is employed today routinely throughout the world. However, when Gibbs debuted his technique, it wasnt exactly greeted with open arms. When we introduced the technique 40 years ago, we were greeted with skepticism by field operations people, says Gibbs. They were skeptical that the technique could solve their performance problems. In fact, they tended to stay with their old trial and error methods. But, eventually, they came to believe in it, so much so that today, many company crews wont pull a well without an analysis using the technique.
Gas Lift

devices as having a profound influence on modern gas-lift technology. I think the invention of the bellows-type gas lift valve was probably the most important piece of equipment ever invented for the gas lift industry, says Brown. The other important development was the wireline retrievable side pocket mandrel which allowed operators to pull gas valves for repair without pulling the tubing.
The King Bellows Gas-Lift Valve

The invention of the single-element, unbalanced, bellows-charged gas-lift valve in 1940 by W.R. King revolutionized gas-lift application and installation design methods. Before King invented his bellows valve, numerous types of unique devices were used for gas lifting wells. These devices, or valves, were operated by rotating or vertically moving the tubing and by means of a sinker bar on a wireline.9 The gas valve is the heart of most gas-lift installations, and Kings valve gave these installations the predictable performance essential for successful gas-lift design and operations. Additionally, the King valve provided the flexibility to allow for a changing depth in the point of gas injection to compensate for a varying flowing bottomhole pressure, water cut, daily production rate allowable, and well deliverability.
The Side-Pocket Mandrel

Gas lift is another important artificial-lift method. This method artificially lifts fluids by the continuous or intermittent injection of relatively-high-pressure gas into a wells flow tube. In the gas-lift process, the injected gas aerates the fluid to be lifted, causing it to become lighter. This, in turn, enables the formation pressure to force the liquid up the wellbore to the surface. Gas lift is especially suitable for offshore wells because platform space is limited and the gas-lift equipment is largely located downhole. Since its development in the 1930s, the percentage of wells going on gas lift has increased continually because it can be used in applications where beam pumping isnt appropriate or practical. Also, gas-lift equipment requires a minimum of maintenance. Kermit Brown, a former U. of Tulsa and U. of Texas professor of petroleum engineering and an industry-acknowledged authority on gas-lift technology, cites the development of two subsurface-equipment
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Early gas-lift valves were the conventional type in which the tubing mandrel that holds the gas-lift and reverse check valves was part of the tubing string. It was necessary to pull the tubing to replace a faulty gas-lift valve. The first selectively retrievable gas lift valve and mandrel was developed around 1951 by Harold McGowen and H.H. Red Moore in conjunction with the Perry R. Bass Foundation, Kermit Brown explains. The retrievable valve mandrel was designed with a pocket, or receiver, within the mandrel. A gas lift valve could be removed or installed by simple wireline operations without pulling tubing. The mandrel is called a sidepocket mandrel because the pocket is offset from the centerline of the tubing. This wireline retrievable system for gas lift valves revolutionized the application of gas lift for inaccessible wells, says Brown. It eliminated the need for a rig to roundtrip the tubing and has saved operators a lot of time and money. Newer mandrels have orienting devices to ensure successful wireline operations in highly deviated wells.
Electrical Submergible Pumps (ESPs)

According to Clarence Dunbar, a retired engineer who spent most of his career

designing, developing, and marketing ESPs for artificial-lift applications, the first electrical submergible pumping unit was developed in Russia in 1917 by Armias Arutunoff. Unfortunately, that was the same year the Bolshevik Revolution began and Arutunoff was forced to flee to Germany to continue work on his pump. Bad luck continued to hamper Arutunoff. It wasnt too long before life in Germany became overly difficult, so in 1921 Arutunoff migrated to California to continue efforts to commercialize his pump. At some point during the early 1920s, Arutunoff installed the first ESP in an oil well. However, Californias high-volume oil wells tended to be very sandy and their abrasiveness was troublesome for Arutunoffs pump. In 1928, Frank Phillips of Phillips Petroleum Co. in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, became interested in the Arutunoff pump and decided to provide financial resources to further develop the pump for use in fields where Phillips operated. With Phillips backing, expanded use of ESPs in the oil industry was assured. Since that time, the concept has proved to be an effective and economical means of lifting large volumes of fluid from great depths under a variety of well conditions. It should be noted that Arutunoff was very adamant that his pump be called a submergible pump rather than a submersible pump. He reasoned that while numerous pumps were submersible in liquids, they could not be operated without being damaged while submerged. After years of arguing his point, Arutunoff successfully convinced the publishers of Websters Dictionary to make the distinction. Todays ESPs are essentially multistage centrifugal pumps that employ blades, or impellers, attached to a long shaft. The shaft is connected to an electrical motor that is submerged in the well. The pump usually is installed in the tubing just below the fluid level, and electricity is supplied through a special heavy-duty armored cable. ESPs have seen a great deal of evolutionary development during the past 70 years, much of which occurred during the 1950s. The development of higher temperature insulation for pump motors and the cables that supply electricity made a big difference, Dunbar explains. In the early days, bottomhole temperatures ranged from 125 to 150F As the wells were drilled deeper, . the temperatures got higher. Now, thanks to better insulation material, electric pumping is used routinely in wells with BHTs in excess of 300F and depths of more than 12,000 ft.
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Another critical outgrowth was the development of high nickel cast iron for use in making pump impellers and diffusers, Dunbar continues. Originally, these components were made of bronze, but the nickel cast iron is harder and more abrasion-resistant which makes the pumps work better in sandy wells. Additionally, the decade of the 1950s saw the development of a mechanical seal for use in the pumps protector/seal section. Prior to the development of the seal, common lead packing seals were used, says Dunbar. They really didnt provide much consistency in keeping water out of the pump motor. Sometimes they gave a long run, other times a short run. Pump lifespans werent very predictable. The mechanical seal allowed a balanced pressure between the inside and outside of the pump motor, Dunbar states. The use of a baffle system prevented high pressure from occurring across the seal face, thereby effectively keeping water out of the motor and vastly improving its operational lifespan. Dunbar remembers that another big milestone in ESP evolution was development of computer programs for the selection of ESPs for high-gas/oil-ratio wells during the 1970s. The programs made it much easier to select the type of pump and to calculate the number of stages required for a specific well application, Dunbar states enthusiastically. It really cut the time required for the calculations that previously were done by hand.
Subsurface Hydraulic Pumps

pump in and out of the well include reduced downtime and the ability to operate without a pulling unit for tubing, cable, or rod removal. Jet pumps are a special class of hydraulic subsurface pumps and are sometimes used in place of reciprocating pumps. Unlike reciprocating pumps, jet pumps have no moving parts and achieve their pumping action by means of momentum transfer between the power fluid and produced fluid. Also, they are popular because they are compact and can be adapted to fit interchangeably in bottomhole assemblies designed for stroking pumps. Although references to jet pumps can be found as early as 1852 and 1864, it was not until 1930 that W. F McMahon received the . first six patents on the oilwell jet pump, says Howard Bradley in The Petroleum Engineering Handbook. Subsequently, McMahon built and marketed the pumps in California in the late 1930s. While they found use locally, they never achieved widespread acceptance. However, in 1970, hardware improvements and the advent of computer models for correct application sizing in oil wells led to the successful marketing of jet pumps. Their popularity has grown since.
The Future

Hydraulic pumping made its appearance as a method of artificial lift in oil wells during the early 1930s. Since that time, the method has found wide acceptance, especially in deep, high-volume pumping applications. There are two types of hydraulic pumps for artificial lift. One is fixed-pump design, the other is free-pump design. In fixed installations, the downhole pump is attached to the end of the tubing string and run into the well. Power fluid is directed down an inner tubing string and the produced fluid and the return power fluid flow to the surface inside the annulus between the two tubing strings. Free-pump installations allow the downhole pump to be circulated into and out of the well inside the power-fluid tubing string, or they can be installed and retrieved by wireline operations. Of the two types of hydraulic-pump installations, the free pump offers the most significant advantages. These installations permit circulating the pump to bottom, producing the well, and then circulating the pump back to the surface for repair or size change. The benefits of being able to circulate the downhole
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Twentieth Century evolutionary accomplishments in subsurface and artificial-lift equipment have been numerous, but the quest for newer and better methods continues. Oilmen seeking to maximize recovery will demand more cost-effective artificiallift choices in the future. The focus of development in the 21st Century will likely include better artificial-lift technologies for deviated and multilateral completions and continued improvements in existing lift technology. Some of the most promising artificial-lift technologies of the future will involve intelligent-well completions (smart wells). These completions offer a combination of systems and processes that significantly improve producers ability to manage the reservoir. Downhole sensors and flow-control devices operating in real time via umbilicals from the surface improve the recovery of hydrocarbons without the need for costly well intervention or workover. Smart-well systems determine flow rates, water cut, gas/oil ratio, and fluid composition from each zone of a multiple-zone well. In short, artificial-lift methods can be optimized since producers can reconfigure a wells architecture at will. The deployment of the adjustable gas-lift valve for smart wells is one of the cuttingedge technologies that will enable the optimization of artificial-lift methods during

the next decade. The valve, which is deployed on a tubing string in a modified side-pocket mandrel, is significant because its injection flow characteristics are adjustable from the surface. Data from downhole sensors, which are received by the surface reservoir-management system in real time via umbilicals, enable operators to make flow adjustments that optimize the wells gas-lift-system operation. This, in turn, makes the system more efficient as it is produced. Before this valves introduction, operators wishing to make valve adjustments were required to change the valve by means of wireline intervention. When the progressive-cavity pump (PCP) was introduced in the 1970s, it was relegated initially to production of high-viscosity, sand-laden heavy oil. During the 1990s, its popularity for use in artificial lift has grown substantially. And, that growth is expected to continue well into the next century because PCPs offer a wider range of volume and lifting capacitiesthey can operate at depths up to 6,000 ft and have a maximum production rate of 4,000 bbl/day. Also, more pump choices exist to suit a broader range of producing environments, and new pump materials have been developed for more aggressive producing applications. These advancements will allow wide acceptance for employment in shallow, high-water-cut, high-volume production and de-watering of coalbed-methane wells.10
References
11. Brown, K., Day, J., Byrd, J., and Mach, J.: The Technology of Artificial Lift Methods, Vol. 2a, Petroleum Publishing Co., Tulsa (1980) 2. 12. Knowles, R.S.: The First Pictorial History of the American Oil and Gas Industry 1859-1983, Ohio U. Press, Athens, Ohio (1983) 7. 13. Day, J. and Byrd, J.: Beam Pumping: Design and Analysis, The Technology of Artificial Lift Methods, Vol. 2a, Petroleum Publishing Co., Tulsa (1980) 9. 14. Fundamentals of Petroleum, third edition, Petroleum Extension Service, U. of Texas, Austin (1986) 179. 15. Lufkin Industries Inc., http://www.lufkin. com/corp/history/pump.htm 16. Day, J. and Byrd, J.: Beam Pumping: Design and Analysis, The Technology of Artificial Lift Methods, Vol. 2a, Petroleum Publishing Co., Tulsa (1980) 9. 17. EVI Oil Tools Inc., http://ww.evioiltools. com/rodlift3.html 18. Brown, K., Day, J., Byrd, J., and Mach, J.: The Technology of Artificial Lift Methods, Vol. 2a, Petroleum Publishing Co., Tulsa (1980) 80. 19. Bradley, H.B.: Petroleum Engineering Handbook, third printing, Society of Petroleum Engineers, Dallas (1992) 512. 10. Artificial Lift, Weatherford W Weatherford , International Inc. (winter 1999) 23.
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