Construction And Economic Advantages Of The Electric Submergible Pump
Authors: Arutunoff Sergei 
Published: December 2007

Publication Rights Reserved

This paper was presented at the California Regional Meeting of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME in Santa Barbara, California, on October 24–25, 1963, and is considered the property of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Permission to publish is hereby restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words, with no illustrations, unless the paper is specifically released to the press by the Editor of the Journal of Petroleum Technology or the Executive Secretary. Such abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the Journal of Petroleum Technology or Society of Petroleum Engineers Journal is granted on request, providing proper credit is given that publication and the original presentation of the paper.

Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Society of Petroleum Engineers office. Such discussion may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines with the paper.

The scope of this paper will be limited to a discussion of major types of artificial lifting equipment and their comparison to electrical submergible pumping equipment under varying conditions.

The cost-price squeeze now prevalent throughout the oil industry is composed of many factors. Among these are inefficient operating procedures, rising material and labor costs, and a lack of knowledge of certain types of lifting equipment. To effect economics to offset this continuing cost-price squeeze, and it may safely be assumed that continued rising costs for exploration and production will rise in greater proportion than crude oil prices, it is necessary that system design and production engineers utilize all means at their disposal.

The working barrel and walking beam pump has long been considered the standard of the oil industry. Refinements in design and propulsion have through the years increased its efficiency. However, it appears today that little more can be done to increase its operating range, either in capacity or lift; at least it may be so considered in view of today's economic situation.

Before its present high value, gas was widely used as a means of lifting oil. Today, with the decrease in availability of cheap gas and the attendant high costs of compressing it for use in a gas-lift program, this paper will not compare this method of lifting with other types of artificial lifting equipment.

The hydraulic pump was the next major means developed for the artificial lifting of liquid hydrocarbons. It is capable of producing from the deeper horizons at low capacities, but has limitations at higher capacities.

The limitations of both the aforementioned methods cannot significantly be altered by improvements in the efficiency of the pumping elements. The problem concerns itself with technological development of greater efficiency of transmission of power from its source to the pumping element.

By no means a newcomer on the scene is the multi-stage centrifugal submergible electrical pumping unit. Since shortly after its initial development, it has enjoyed the dubious honor of being a specialized piece of apparatus for lifting large volumes of fluid from limited casing diameters. The term "dubious honor" is here used to denote the "specialized piece of apparatus" since submergible electrical pumping equipment has shown itself to be economically feasible for use in low volume production in recent years.