Downhole pumps deliver broad gains
Downhole pumps have gained in
efficiency, durability, economy and
resistance to wear. Improved lift
performance results from more than
just this, however. It may have as much
to do with the imaginative solutions to
problems in the field backed by
engineering of pumps into systems and
the addition of modeling and control
software.
By Production Technology Editor BILL KUNKEL
Downhole pump technology is exhibiting broad
performance gains as manufacturers improve
products and meet customers' specific needs.
Progress in pumping goes along with
improvements in monitoring and control
technologies, so pumping systems today
address customer requirements, productivity
improvements and cost control as systems.
Short of a textbook, a review must pick and
choose among several areas of apparent
activity. This touches on four such specific
areas: gas lift, progressing cavity pumps
(PCPs), electric submersible pumps (ESPs) and
combinations of pumping technology.
Gas lift
Though not a subsurface pump technology,
gas lift is highly flexible and often competes
with downhole pumps or supplements their
use. Gas is pumped downhole under high
pressure between the production tubing and
casing. Gas feeds through valves in sidepocket
mandrels in the production string, mixes with
the produced liquids and lifts them to the
surface (Figure 1).
It is a highly flexible technology and can
handle sandy crudes. Not much surface
equipment is needed, giving the method an
advantage offshore. Basically, all that is
needed for gas lift is a high-pressure gas
source and enough wells to make the
technique efficient. It's usually not economical
in small fields and single wells. Some of the
newest uses of gas lift involve combining it
meet a need in Venezuela's Orinoco heavy oil
with downhole pumps such as ESPs and beam
fields.
pumps.
But like any other lift technique, economic
manager for artificial lift in northern Latin
evaluation of specific conditions in specific
America, said: "What we've done is taken the
fields is necessary to determine if gas lift is
standard PCP and made a system large
applicable.
enough to pump high volumes of heavy oil.
A recent example of the flexibility of gas lift
comes from the Bellota field in
southern Mexico. When oil
production declined there
recently, tests of ESP lift gave
poor results so gas lift was
selected. A comparison
between methane and
nitrogen resulted in selecting
membrane generated nitrogen
as the lift gas.
PCPs
PCPs initially were used in
the 1980s in northern
Alberta's sandy, heavy oil
fields. The pump mechanism
- a progressing cavity
comprising a helical rotor
turning inside a series of
chambers formed by a
double-helical stator -was
highly tolerant of sand.
Since then, the PCP has
grown more versatile with
materials development and
widening applications,
including mating of the
pumps to ESP electric and
hydraulic drives.
Centrilift and other manufacturers have
combined the motor that drives the ESPs
through a gear box to drive a PCP (Figure 2). It
does so with a flex shaft and 9-to-1 ratio gear
box that makes up an assembly similar to a
submersible ESP system going downhole.
A recent innovation involves installing the
drive system and gear reduction on tubing
and then deploying the pump down and
latching it in a process called through
tubing-conveyed. The procedure allows
500 b/d - more likely 100 b/d or 200 b/d
retrieving the pump from the system without
when high sand cuts are involved sometimes
bringing the motor and the seal section up.
with water as well. Most PCPs for these
In many applications, difficult to-handle
applications are built in 2 7/8" to 3 din.
fluids cause problems with the elastomer
diameters. Weatherford is making pumps
PCP, and ease of retrieval helps contain
manufactured in 51/?in. pipe.
maintenance costs.
In the Orinoco, operators originally set out
Lately, PCPs have been made much larger to
to produce the heavy oil with ESPs because of
the 3,000 b/d to 4,000 b/d production. But
ESP run lives have proved fairly short and the
Ron Lawrence, Weatherford's region
cost more than anticipated. Producers can get
a higher volume for a short period, but
overall, the economics is not favorable for
ESPs.
This led Weatherford to experiment with
PCPs traditionally produce upwards of
larger barrel PCPs to pump more volume. The
company took its optimum heavy oil design and
increased the diameter of the tube to 5 1/2".,
giving it a higher volume pump. "We're
probably pushing right now with our current
design about 2,700 b/d, and in the next 6
months we're expecting to reach 4,000 b/d,"
Lawrence said.
www.EandPnet.com I Hart's E&P I October 2000
 Weatherford is not the only service 100 in 2001," he said.
company in the Orinoco with high-volume The higher speed and volume pumps
PCPs, but Lawrence believes it was first and have required high-strength rods to drive
now has the largest installed base. "We tested them and additional horsepower at the
the pumps here in 1996, and broadbased surface, as well.
installation or commercialization of the pumps Lawrence said most of the projects tie in
came in 1999. downhole monitoring to surface control,
enabling operators to optimize the variable
frequency drive linking the monitoring to
speed control. This optimizes the production
from the reservoir and reduces the risk of
pump failure.
Durability of the pumps is excellent but
has not yet been reached: the longest
running installation has completed 10
months and is still going.
ESPs
ESPs are the leaders in volume of production
and depth of operation: running to measured
depths greater than 28,000ft, (8,540m) with up
to 45,000 b/d production. Hydraulic
submersible pumps (HSPs) have been applied
to multiphase, gassy fluids, notably by Weir
Group in Texaco's Captain field, and their use
is being expanded there. But engineering is
improving the ability of ESPs to handle gassy
fluids, particularly in combination systems. As
the high-volume producing fields around the
world decline and go into secondary recovery,
"We have around 100 installed for all four of
ESPs seem to be the logical candidates for
the major operators in the Orinoco, and will
service, with
probably see another 50 or so by the end of
2000. We expect to add more than

HSPs providing strong competition.

In recent years much emphasis on ESPs
has been in improving durability, lowering
maintenance costs and improving handling of
multiphase fluids, especially in dealing with
gas. Operation of such pumps has improved
markedly on all three counts.
As many as 60% of ESP failures have been
attributed to failure of the power cord. These
cords are banded to the outside of the jointed
pipe that deploys the ESP Major
manufacturers of ESPs have devised ways to
deploy the pumps on coiled tubing with the
power cable run inside.
In addition to protecting the cable,
running it inside the coiled tubing allows
operators to install the ESP with a coiled
tubing rig and injector. Offshore and in
deep, deviated wells and high-drilling-rig
cost areas on land, this is a far less costly
method of installation, requiring only a
coiled tubing injector and rig.
The power cable inside the coiled tubing
and the ESP is inverted - motor on top,
 pump on bottom - so fluid is pumped up
the annulus of the well.
ElectriCoil is Centrilift's method of
deploying ESP on coiled tubing. Product
manager Ken Bebak said, "We put the first
one in May of'99 in Alaska. It's been running
just fine ever since. The beauty of it is it
doesn't require a workover rig. Maintenance
can be accomplished with a coiled tubing
rig, and you can even do a live well
intervention with it." The company planned
a second North Slope installation in August.
Cable must be anchored inside the coiled
tubing to prevent a large tensile load in the Fgure 3. When the power cable runs Inside the coiled tubing, the ESP pump is inverted- motor on top, pump on bottom -and
wire conductor. Centrilift applies a dimple fluid Is pumped up the annulus.

to the coiled tubing, which is engaged by

a shoulder around the power cable
bundle. Wood Group ESP uses powerful
rare-earth magnets spaced along the
power cable, and Schlumberger's Reda
pump division has a method where the
power cord assumes a spiral
configuration that holds it in place by
friction Figure 3).
When the ESP is installed, it must be
set with a packer to enable pumping up
the annulus. Wood Group ESP has

devised a resettable packer discharge head

with rotational and longitudinal slips set
by hydraulic pressure. An operator who
needs to move the packer does not have to
pull it and rework it. Instead, he can just
release the hydraulic pressure and relocate
and re-engage the packer. Testing inside
the casing well above the design point
establishes that the clamps hold.
In high-cost areas such as the Persian
Gulf, Reda has achieved notable success
with coiled tubing installations. Product
manager John Pursell said the system's
advantages have come clear in a project
offshore Qatar that has been going on for
more than 3 years.
"The, big advantage of the pump
deployed on coiled tubing is that when a
pump goes down, we can turn it around
faster with a coil unit than with a rig.
"On an offshore platform that does not
have a rig on it permanently, you first
mobilize a coiled tubing unit, pull the old
installation out, run the new one in and turn
it back on. We've managed to do that in 7
days from the day the pump went down."
That record includes the time to mobilize
crews, bring in an available coiled tubing
unit, nipple up the blowout preventers, pull
the broken completion, install the
replacement, button everything back up and
turn the switch on.
With a rig in the Persian Gul f, the normal
mobilization ranges from 30 to 60 days, said
Pursell. "We've averaged 19 days from the
time a unit breaks until we turn it around.
That's average. There were a couple of times
when we couldn't get a coil unit because it
was on a critical job and it couldn't be
released. We had to wait a

month for one of them. That skewed the

average. If you normalize the numbers and
took the highs and lows out, the average
would be 14 days turnaround.
"After you wait on a drilling rig or workover
rig with conventional jointed pipe in the
Persian Gulf, it is 30 to 60 days, closer to 60
days, just to get the rig. And then you have to
rig up and spend 4 or 5 days doing the
workover. So you're comparing a 14- to
19-day average with a coiled tubing unit to
repair a well vs. 35 on the short side to 60
days or longer. That 60-day wait was when oil
prices were still in the low $20s. Get to $30
oil, and I think rigs are going to get harder
and harder to come by to do remedial work."
Difference in the cost impact is similar.
Pursell said the typical coil workover cost
has been in the $150,000 range, while the
equivalent workover cost with a rig has been
in the $500,000 to $600,000 range. The cash
flow benefit of more days producing oil also
needs to be added.
In land areas where ESPs are established
and an infrastructure of working rigs exists,
coiled tubing installation provides no economic
benefit. A small pulling unit is cheaper than a
coil unit. One reason is because the coiled
tubing used to deploy ESPs is 23/sin., and the
population of those sided rigs is not yet
large. However, every workover rig can pull
an ESP unit on pipe.
ESP durability
ESP durability can prove excellent in the right
situation as demonstrated by Reda in the
mid-1990s in Egypt. A purpose-built,
cable-deployed unit placed an ESP bottom
intake system. Those units average 3-year ran
times. In Qatar, however, where downhole
equipment was modeled on the units in Egypt,
life spans proved less than 2 years.
The Qatar units were installed on a fast
track to evaluate the reservoir and then
decide how best to proceed. The original goal
of a 2-year lifespan was not reached
because an aggressive fluid with H2S and
C02, 3% of each, and a nasty sludge caused
corrosion problems absent in Egypt.
For the future, Pursell said, Reda is
developing advanced downhole gas
handlers that will separate and remix gas
back into the fluid, enabling it to pass
through the pump.
Combination systems Problems presented in
the field require the most imaginative
solutions from technologists. That may show
up best in the way pump technologies are
combined, changed back and forth or even
stacked.
In the X-ray area off northwest Indonesia
and in Western Australia's Stag oil field,
operators combined gas lift and ESP
production methods because of rapidly
developing high gas fractions.
In Indonesia, workers at Maxus Indonesia
and Arco Indonesia encountered enough gas
in 1987 that a gas lift operation was begun.
The gas source has depleted, and wells have
been converted back to ESPs. During the
recent switch from gas lift back to ESP
hybrid, ESP and gas lift units were used to
continue production as the fluid changed
character.
In the Stag field, northwest of Damper,
more than 40 million bbl of 19° API oil have
been found, and the production plan calls for
development during the next 15 years. The
reservoir is about 2,230ft below
sea level and 66ft thick. It is poorly
consolidated and contains a 7 cp oil at 125°F It
soon became clear the field has a larger than
expected gas cap, and engineers at Apache
Energy and Helix Technologies watched terrain
slugging develop in the horizontal,
ESP-pumped wells and saw free gas fractions
climb higher than 80% at pump suctions.
Alan Brodie, Helix Well Technologies
production technology manager, said, "We
worked with Apache Energy to develop an
improved completion that allowed three flow
regimes: natural flow of oil via the tubing or
annulus, ESP lift via the tubing augmented
by auto gas lift through the annulus, or
conventional, compressor driven gas lift
(Figure 4)."

Software
Software figures largely in the offerings of many
pump manufacturers, and it often results from
pumping solutions developed in the field. Helix
Well Technologies developed a software tool -
Heli GESP that allows engineers to optimize the
design of combination ESP and gas lift systems
and proved out at the Stag field (Figure 5). The
software considers all factors that influence
"gassy" ESP well performance:
• well inflow performance;
 • natural separation effects upstream of
the ESP system;
• production split between ESP lift and
gas lift;
• gas separation system performance;
• special ESP gas handling stage
performance characteristics; and
• ESP gas handling limitations.
Helix said these processes are coupled and
in turn influenced by the usual factors that
affect well performance - pressure, volume,
temperature, reservoir and surface facilities
pressure and well geometry.
Another useful program for downhole
pumping is a Wood Group ESP analysis
called ESP Bend (Figure 6). Most ESP
equipment is installed off a dog leg or
horizontal location. Rule-of-thumb
programs dictate the passable bend
angle based on beam calculations. Wood
Group ESP's new program - in beta test
- takes well survey information and
equipment dimensions and identifies
any problems negotiating the bend.
Pump combinations
Another solution to pumping problems
appears to be to gang up on them with
duplicate or serial systems. Centrilift has
installed some duplicate and triplicate
systems in Latin America where pumps
boost fluids up to another pump, which
then boosts fluids to the surface. The two
units in series overcome some of the
horsepower constraints: for example, two
1,000-hp units replace one 2,000-hp unit.
Dual units can be placed with one serving
as a backup, a strategy for high-cost, high
running operational areas.
Such strategies were first
used offshore California in
1989, the idea being "If I get
a year out of one and I get a
year out of one each, then I
saved a pull and it was
cheaper."
Today's strategies are more
sophisticated, according to
Centrilift. In South America,
Indonesia and Canada,
multiple control devices are
going where available
horsepower won't take
pumps as deep as needed.
But boosting from one pump
into another involves
concentric tubulars and
other strategies (Figure 7).
Figure 7. This
well diagram
shows a
dual-pump
boosting
scheme for
South
America.

Figure 4. This ESP and auto gas lift completion

allows natural flow via the annulus. ESP lift begins
when the gas-to-liquid ratio declines and natural
flow stops.