Effective Insertable Progressive Cavity Pump Anchor Optimizes Workover Costs

Abstract

Abstract As oil and gas fields are depleted, artificial lift (AL) systems are often required to maintain delivery volumes and to maximize recovery. To handle adverse conditions, such as high viscosity oil, high water cut, sand, low reservoir pressures, high temperatures, low productivity wells, and high angle wells, special AL systems may be required. In highly productive Burgan reservoirs, high water production is a major issue in both vertical and horizontal wells thus requiring AL systems to maximize the oil recovery. Unfortunately, there are pump failures or getting stuck due to changes in the well condition or uncertainties. Replacing the failed pump needs more cost and availability of rigs. Conventional PCPs are installed by running the stator assembly on the bottom of the tubing and the rotor on the bottom of the rod. In case of malfunction in the system due to change in the well condition may lead to pump failure and its replacement. Besides production losses during the pump failure, the availability of the workover rig is a major issue. This led to go for new innovation and technology to restore the production and minimize the cost especially at current low oil price environment. A new Anchoring device for insert-able PCP can be run in the well without using any rig. The use of the anchors eliminates the need for the pump seating nipple, thus removing the need of pulling tubing to install or change the setting depth. Moreover, by having retrievable seating mechanism, changing the setting depth of the pump can be done by un-seating the anchors and re-seating those at the new desired setting depth. This is beneficial in wells with dynamic and changing fluid levels. The insert-able pump anchor also can be used where tubing has a hole near the pump seating nipple, or have a problem with the completion like damaged AL system. The insert-able pump anchor allows the user to select the best pump seating depth after the well is completed and tubing has been run. In this particular well, PCP was stuck, rod was broken, production was stopped, and loses were increasing. To restore the production, reduce the cost and time, insert-able PCP anchor was run at certain depth after punching the tubing in order to allow for a new pump intake zone and landed the anchored pump above the punched area. This system eliminated costly and time consuming tubing pulls with workover rig to change damaged pump and thus saved money. The well went back to production in short period of time after this procedure and showed good performance. This new and innovative system and procedure can be used in similar well conditions in other fields to save time and money to create additional value.