Artificial lift is a method used to lower the producing bottom hole

pressure (BHP) on the formation to obtain a higher production rate from the
well. There are few types of artificial lift available in the industry nowadays.
Every single artificial lift has its own advantages and drawback. To carry out
comparison study between rod pump, electric submersible pump and gas lift,
several criteria will be explain which are capital and operating cost,
operating efficiency, flexibility and reliability and production rate range.
For rod pump, capital cost for implement it is low to moderate
depending depth and surface unit. This is because it is not a complex pump
and easy to install as well as operate it. Meanwhile, operating cost for rod
pump is quite the same as capital cost which is low for shallow to medium
depth (<7000 ft) and low production (<400 bfpd). Efficiency of total system
for rod pump is excellent. With a full pump tillage, rod pump will be having
efficiency ranging from 45% to 60% and no wonder rod pump is the most
famous artificial lift. In term of flexibility and reliability, rod pump has
excellent for both properties. It is said to be flexible because it can adjust
stroke length, plunger size, strokes per minute and run time to control. If
good practices is followed, system reliability will reach up to 95%. Production
rate range depending on setting depth. Placing it near the perforation area
can obtain maximum potential of production.
Next, electric submersible pump or ESP is one of the artificial lift. From
the name itself, this type of pump is mainly use electricity as a source
energy to pump the fluid from the reservoir up to the surface. Operating cost
is high for cabling and power generation but relatively low capital cost if
electric power is accessible and will rise if horsepower increase. Operating
cost is high to change out the conventional ESP. Actually, it varies depending
on horsepower and energy cost. Short run life of ESP can result on high cost
but the high cost can be balance by having long time run of ESP. ESP
efficiency is good for high rate wells (>1000 bfpd) but reduces significantly
for low rate wells (<1000 bfpd). Unfortunately, ESP has poor flexibility in
terms of fixed speed. It requires good design of variable speed design for
better flexibility while. Besides, its reliability varies according to condition of
the reservoir either ideal or problematic areas. Furthermore, high full range
of production can be achieved by designing an unconstrained ESP that will
produce full well potential to the surface thus reaching higher flow rates than
gas lift.
Last but not least, gas lift is one method or artificial lift. Gas will be
injected continuously and intermittently at selected location, resulting in a
decreasing in the natural flowing gradient of the reservoir fluid. For capital
cost, equipment of well gas lift is low but gas distribution cost and
compression cost is slightly high. For operating cost, downhole equipment
cost is low and gas lift systems have a very low OPEX due to downhole
reliability but compression cost may vary according to compressor
maintenance and fuel cost. Operating efficiency is moderate and increase for

wells that has low gas liquid ratio (GLR) and low for well that has high gas
liquid ratio (GLR). Flexibility of gas lift system is excellent. Selection of tubing
need to be precise for obtaining high flexibility and gas injection rate is vary
to changed rate. System reliability can be consider excellent if compression
system is well designed and maintained. Full range of production rate can be
controlled. Absolute open flow production rate cannot be achieved with gas
lift because as much drawdown as for ESP cannot be achieved.