Artificial Lift Optimization Empowers Digital Oilfields via Industrial IoT
For decades, operating companies have used artificial lift optimization (ALO) systems to enhance oil and gas production. But in today’s “lower for longer” oil price market, which has been further exacerbated by COVID-19 pandemic adversely impacting demand, with owner-operators, independent E&P companies, and other industry stakeholders trying to squeeze out more profits per barrel of oil equivalent (or at least lower cost per boe), solutions designed to optimize artificial lift systems are in greater demand than ever. New age automation technologies, the trend toward digitalization, and the emerging Industrial IoT (IIoT), help further increase the value proposition for today’s artificial lift optimization solutions.
Enhancing production through artificial lift optimization
Most oil and gas wells operated throughout the world require some form of artificial lift during their lifecycles. Selecting the right lift technology requires detailed analysis; including gas, oil, and water property predictions; pressure loss from inflow to wellhead; variation in gas and oil ratio; and water cut over a period of time. Monitoring and optimizing the artificial lift system is equally important to selecting the optimal lift technology, because improper operation of the lift system generally leads to higher OpEx and subsequently CapEx investment. Monitoring is generally done using downhole and surface sensors that provide basic information about lift performance. However, this information is not always sufficient to determine if the well is running at the highest possible efficiency. Such calculations require a sophisticated mathematical model to capture the physical and chemical processes during the lifting process.
Although mature wells are more typical recipients of artificial lift systems, an increasing number of unconventional shale oil and shale gas wells now incorporate artificial lift at the outset of well production due to the steeper rates of decline than conventional wells. In addition, field production can be enhanced by employing different ALO solutions during different phases of a well’s production life. For example, deploying a jet pump or an electric submersible pump (ESP) system during the early and transitional phases of the well’s life, respectively, can be used in conjunction with rod pump systems deployed later in the well’s life to realize the largest estimated ultimate recovery (EUR).
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