Electrical Submersible Pump Design in Vertical Oil Wells

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Abdelhady A, Gomaa S*, Ramzi H, Hisham H, Galal A and Abdelfattah A Petroleum Engineering and Gas Technology Department, Faculty of Engineering, The British Research Article University in Egypt, Egypt Volume 4 Issue 5 Received Date: September 15, 2020 October 16, 2020 *Corresponding author: Sayed Gomaa, Petroleum Engineering and Gas Technology Published Date: Department, Faculty of Engineering, The British University in Egypt, El Sherouk City, Cairo, DOI: 10.23880/ppej-16000237 Egypt, Tel: 01115003694; Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Artificial Lift is a very essential tool to increase the oil production rate or lift the oil column in the wellbore up to the surface. Artificial lift is the key in case of bottom hole pressure is not sufficient to produce oil from the reservoir to the surface. So, a complete study is carried to select the suitable type of artificial lift according to the reservoir and wellbore conditions like water production, sand production, solution gas-oil ratio, and surface area available at the surface. Besides, the maintenance cost and volume of produced oil have an essential part in the selection of the type of artificial lift tool. Artificial lift tools have several types such as Sucker Rod Pump, Gas Lift, Hydraulic Pump, Progressive Cavity Pump, Jet Pump, and Electrical Submersible Pump. All these types require specific conditions for subsurface and surface parameters to apply in oil wells. This paper will study the Electrical Submersible Pump “ESP” which is considered one of the most familiar types of artificial lifts in the whole world. Electrical Submersible Pump “ESP” is the most widely used for huge oil volumes. In contrast, ESP has high maintenance and workover cost. Finally, this paper will discuss a case study for the Electrical Submersible pump “ESP” design in an oil well. This case study includes the entire well and reservoir properties involving fluid properties to be applied usingKeywords: Prosper software. The results of the design model will impact oil productivity and future performance of oil well.

Submersible; Pump; Design; PROSPER; Artificial Lift; Oil Well Introduction

productivitychange the type [3]. of artificial lift tool to be intermittent gas lift or Sucker rod pump that run on oil wells having low Artificial lift is considered the backbone for enhancement theproductivity petroleum from production oil wells engineer. in the world.Petroleum Selecting engineer the the surface due to the reservoir pressure has been declined optimum artificial lift technique represents a challenge for In case of bottom hole pressure is unable to lift fluids to to technical and economical evaluation [1,2]. In addition, thecould reservoir arrange drive the optimum mechanism type has of an artificial important lifts roleaccording in the rapidly with excessive water production. Therefore, it is considered the optimum time to run artificial lift tools. These artificial lift tools could overcome the loss in reservoir inselection the early of production optimum typelife of of reservoir, artificial the lifts. optimum Therefore, type inof pressure, which will help to increase drawdown due to case of depletion drive mechanism with high initial oil rate reducing the bottomhole flowing pressure against sand face of the formation. The reduction in bottomhole flowing timeartificial there lift are is steep continuous decrease gas in liftreservoir or electrical pressure, submersible therefore pressured leads to [4,5]. increase difference in pressure between pump “ESP” could be applied. In contrast, with production reservoir and wellbore and increase in oil production rate as shown in Figure 1 the rate of produced fluid is decreased that requires to Electrical Submersible Pump Design in Vertical Oil Wells Pet Petro Chem Eng J 2 Petroleum & Petrochemical Engineering Journal

surface and operation parameters.

production rate, solution gas oil ratio, oil viscosity, oil The reservoir parameters are production rate, water and the driving mechanism. formation volume factor, inflow performance relationship,

The surface conditions include location of field, power maintenance,source, surface plan production for long rate,life recovery, and contamination surface facility, of fluids. and The conditions of field operation are plan for pressure Figure 1: plan for enhanced oil recovery. The wellbore parameters Well Deliverability before and after artificial lift. include total depth of the well, type of completion in the well, tubingOperating and casing Conditionsdiameter, and deviationfor Artificial of wellbore Lift [9,10].tools There are different types of artificial lift tools with advantagesdifferent specifications and limitations related according to well parameters,to its application reservoir on and fluid properties. Each type of artificial lifts has different Different Types of artificial lift tools have been applied andoil well.Electrical The artificial Submersible lifting Pump tools include[6-8]. There gas lift,are Suckermany areon oilfavorable wells accordingto apply toin reservoir,addition to wellbore the components and surface of parametersRod Pump, affecting Hydraulic the Pump,selection Progressive of the optimum Cavity type Pump of reservoirconditions production that each type as presented of artificial in lifts Table has 1[11]. some conditions artificial lifting techniques that include reservoir, wellbore, Operating Conditions Rod Pump Hydraulic Pump Electric Submersible Pump Gas Lift Sand Fair Fair Fair Poor Good Good Poor Fair Fair Fair Excellent Paraffin Poor Good Fair Good HighCorrosion Gas oil ratio Good Good Fair ExcellentFair Deviated Hole Poor Good Good Depth Fair Fair Good High Volume Fair ExcellentPoor Good Scale Good ExcellentFair Poor Fair Flexibility Excellent Table 1:

ElectricalComparison Submersible between all typesPump of artificial lifts. Electrical Submersible Pump is the most familiar and widely used in the petroleum industry in the world which more than 100000 oil wells are using electrical submersible pump in the world in order to lift the fluids to the surface or in order to accelerate the well production. This type of Pump componentsis familiar in ofhandling this type huge of quantitypump is ofmultistage fluids to thecentrifugal surface even if high amount of water produced with oil. The major pump is attached to downhole motor by shaft. Heavy cable is delivered from the surface to downhole motor in order to deliver the electricity. In addition, there are downhole Figure 2: Main Components of Electrical Submersible [12,13].protector that could create an additional seal to the downhole Pump. motor in order for further protection as shown in Figure 2

Advantages of Electrical Submersible Pump [9,14] sand production, also have gravel pack in order to protect any wear in the downhole pump. So, most of wells that have 1. Electrical Submersible Pump can provide large produced tools could not handle sand production from reservoir to liquid volume from the reservoir downhole motor from sand. However, most of artificial lift 2. Electrical Submersible Pump has only limited equipment at the surface andthe wellbore.progressive There cavity are pump only [12].two types of artificial lift tools 3. Electrical Submersible Pump is highly recommended in could handle sand production. These two types are gas lift Design of Electrical Submersible Pump 4. producehighly deviated greater wells than and1000 in bbl/day wells with liquid. severe dogleg. 5. Electrical SubmersibleSubmersible Pump Pump efficiency has high is veryresistance high that to Table 2 presents the reservoir and fluid properties for 6. facean oil to the well surface. is producing Therefore, from it is black planned oil to reservoir design Electrical has low corrosion in oil wells. productivity due to losses in wellbore pressure from sand LimitationsElectrical Submersible of Electrical Pump has low Submersible cost of maintenance. Pump The reservoir has high oil potential and large oil volume [9,15] submersible pump to maximize oil productivity from well. tool to produce large volume of oil production to the surface. 1. Electrical Submersible Pump has a great problem in case could deliver to the well bore which requires an artificial lift large liquid volume because it has the ability to carry large 2. Electrical Submersible Pump has a great problem in case quantityThe benefit of liquid of Electrical to the surface. submersible Figure pump3 displays is producing the input of sandhigh gasproduction oil ratio fromis produced reservoir from to the the wellbore. reservoir or in

great depth. fluid properties in order to match the reservoir data. 3. case of high bottom hole pressure in some oil wells with

Electrical Submersible Pump is difficult to use in case of 4. Electricallow oil production Submersible from Pump some iswells. very In critical case of in production case of oil is lower than 200 barrel per day. 5. Electrical Submersible Pump requires large diameter of casingwells in in the case offshore of high area. volume of liquid produced from the reservoir. 6. Electrical Submersible Pump is very costly in case of

there is a failure in the downhole motor. to severalThere areconditions. several softwaresThese conditions designed such to build as reservoir a model for electrical submersible pump for any oil well according could enable us to select the best and optimum Electrical Figure 3: Submersibleproperties, wellPump parametersparameters that and match surface all conditions ReservoirInput pressure, PVT Data psi in PROSPER software.5200 productivity. One of the main parameters is gas oil ratio in order to enhance well performance and increase well Bubble point pressure, psi 3600 Reservoir Temperature, F 250 numberthat influence of stages on number in the ofpump. stages One in ESPof the pump. most Increasing familiar GOR, scf/stb 800 gas oil ratio that produced from the reservoir will increase 50 optimum design for electrical submersible pump for all oil API 35 and widely used software is PROSPER that could select the Water cut, % 0.78 80,000 wellsThere conditions are some [16]. constrains for electrical submersible Gas specific gravity 1.45 WaterOil viscosity, salinity, ppmcp 0.3 Oil FVF, bbl/stb installedpump such against as sand the production formation from intervals reservoir in order to the to wellbore. prevent Table 2: In these conditions, downhole screen or filter has to be Reservoir and fluid properties.

The best correlation for calculating solution gas oil ratio, parameters using the suitable correlation in PROSPER bubble point pressure and oil formation volume factor is model.This There PVT are data several have to correlations be matched could with be the applicable. matching

Glaso correlation where, Beal et al. correlation is the best Prosper software will make a lot of iterations in order to on for calculating the oil viscosity. These correlations will be achieve the best correlation that will represent the reservoir appliedInflow to predict Performance the future performance Relationship of reservoir fluid. fluid properties. Figure 4 depicts the matching parameters have to be matched with fluid properties.

Inflow performance relationship “IPR” represents the itperformance is required of to reservoir import reservoir to deliver parameters liquid to the depending wellbore. onIn orderreservoir to establish model selected the inflow such performance as reservoir relationship, pressure,

reservoir temperature, water cut from reservoir, gas oil ratio and productivity index of reservoir. Then plot inflow performance of reservoir as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 4:

Matching parameters for fluid properties.

Figure 6: Model selection and required parameters for IPR.

Figure 5: Different correlations selection for matching parameters.

The best correlation will be selected depending on two parameters. The first parameter must be closest. toFigure one in5 value while, the second parameter must be near to zero in Figure 7: order to achieve the lowest standard deviation Inflow Performance Relationship. shows the different correlations used in PROSPER model.

PROSPER software will use the above reservoir parameters to calculate the inflow performance relationship at different pressure values then plot this inflow performance on curve that will be illustrated in Figure 7. Vertical Lift Performance Data

There are several parameters will control the value of pressure losses in the well such as deviation survey which deviationrepresents survey the change on PROSPER in well model. trajectory regarding to the vertical depth of the well. Figure 8 displays the input data for

Downhole equipment represents the different sizes of each equipment in the well bore that may cause pressure loss due to the obstruction of different sizes in the well bore. FigureGeothermal 9 shows the Gradient input equipment represents in this thecase study.change in Figure 9: temperature with depth, as it will have an impact on the well Well Downhole Equipment. productivity and well bore pressure. Figure 10 illustrates the input temperature change with depth in the wellbore.

Figure 10:

Well Geothermal Gradient. that represents the reservoir deliverability, the design Figure 8: . of electricalAfter constructing submersible the inflowpump performancerequires several relationship input

Well Deviation survey parameters in order to evaluate the efficiency of electrical Gomaa S, et al. Electrical Submersible Pump Design in Vertical Oil Wells. Pet Petro Chem Eng J Copyright© Gomaa S, et al. 2020, 4(5): 000237. 6 Petroleum & Petrochemical Engineering Journal submersible pump and calculate the different outputs. Finally, PROSPER could design the optimum parameters

There are several input parameters are required to design electrical submersible pump. These parameters submersibleand output ofpump electrical design submersible are number pump of pump that willstages be applied in this well. The results of PROSPER for electrical pressure.such as depthThe input of pump, parameters length ofhave power been cable, imported required in equal 106 stage, required power equal 571 hp, the outlet rate, reservoir water cut, gas oil ratio of reservoir, top node illustratestemperature the of results the pump of electrical equal submersible 255 F and the pump efficiency design of electrical submersible pump equal 64 %. Figure 13 PROSPER software as shown in Figure 11. by PROSPER software for this well. The operating area of electrical submersible pump is shown in Figure 14.

Figure 11: Data required for electrical submersible pump design.

Results of Electrical Submersible Pump Design Figure 13: Results of the electrical submersible Pump could calculate the pump intake pressure, pump discharge Design. pressure,By using pump the discharge input parameters, rate, actual PROSPERhead required software as . shown in Figure 12

Figure 12: Calculations required to design the electrical Figure 14: Electrical submersible pump Operating Area submersible pump.

Conclusions production engineering fundamentals and long-stroke rod pumping. Gulf Professional Publishing, pp: 598.

8. Gilbertson E (2010) Gas lift valve failure mode analysis An electrical submersible pump was designed for an oil and the design of a thermally-actuated positive-locking well to enhance the well productivity and improve the well safety valve. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. andperformance. number of The stages results required of ESP todesign lift liquid in Prosper volume software to the surface.indicated The the results operating of PROSPER area of pump, for electrical the pump submersible efficiency, 9. Takacs G (2017) Electrical submersible pumps manual: pump design are number of pump stages equal 106 stage, Design, operations, and maintenance. Gulf professional publishing, USA.

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