Advanced Approach of SRP Downhole Dynamometer Evaluation - Proof of Concept

Research output: ThesisMaster's Thesis

Authors

Abstract

The most widely used artificial lift method in the petroleum industry is the sucker rod pump. Proper surveillance of these systems is vital to determine a pump´s status and the production of a well. Surface dynamometry is heavily dependent on the interpretation skills of the field engineer. In addition, the dynamograph retrieved at the surface does not represent the actual pump status downhole since it also depicts static and dynamic forces of the rod string. Therefore, algorithms have been postulated to obtain information about the actual pump performance in the borehole, the so-called synthetic pump cards. This work aims to analyse and compare a standard software on the market to a novel software application by RAGSOL. The study’s primary focus is comparing the calculated downhole dynamometers for both applications, based on surface dynamometers of three existing oil wells in a field in Upper Austria. Initially, proof for the validity of the used algorithm in RAGSOL’s software is described using MATLAB. The observations reported here show that RAGSOL’s software application, based on Everitt and Jennings’ algorithm, is a meaningful method to obtain the pump’s status and production information. The comparison study manifests that it also shows the benefit of a more user-friendly application due to a remarkable reduction of input parameters compared to the standard software, which effectively will save time and money in the long run. An additional field study was conducted for ten oil wells located in Upper Austria to underline these findings. For the inspected ten wells, analysis and recommendations have been made based on the RAGSOL’s software results, proving its importance for evaluating the artificial lift system and discussing improvements towards visualization of those results.

Details

Translated title of the contributionErweiterter Ansatz zur Bewertung von Gestängetiefpumpen-Untertage-Dynamometern - Proof of Concept
Original languageEnglish
QualificationDipl.-Ing.
Awarding Institution
Supervisors/Advisors
Award date25 Jun 2021
Publication statusPublished - 2021