Challenge of Maximizing Brown Field Production in High Artificial Lift Failures Frequency Environment as a Result of Wells Harsh Conditions
Authors: Abd-EL hamed M. S. , Rezk R. S. , Abu Hallawa M. , Hegazy M. 
Published: October 2023

Objectives/Scope

Kuwait energy company has started to develop oil reserves since 2008 in AREA-A Concession, started with production of 2,000 BOPD increased to 7,000 BOPD in 2021, most of the wells are being pumped with SRP, AREA-A wells conductivity are sufficiently high to produce wells with reservoir pressure of 150 PSI up to 1800 BBL/Day; which result in harsh condition of severe depletion, severe sand production, and increased gas production.

This harsh condition of severe depletion required to produce the area wells while placing the pumps below the perforations to maximize the draw down; which resulted in increased pumps sticking with sand and increased pumps gas locking tendency; thus, with the need to maximize the wells productivity to achieve a positive and economic concession profits.

A solutions has been studied such as placing of gravel pack to help preventing coarse and medium grains sand particles from entering the pumps but found that gravel pack will induce additional production drop of 200 to 300 PSI; while area reservoir pressure is 150 PSI, thus will reduce wells flow rates, another solution was to place a standalone sand screen; but selection was very critical due to sand sorting wasn't uniform to choose any of the market screens, which result in either of screen plugging or sand passing from screens.

Methods, Procedures, Process

To achieve the challenging high wells fluid flow rates, in a harsh condition of depletion, sand, and gas production; an innovative solutions has been implemented; which are; Producing the wells with non-conventional 3.25’’ Oversized SRP; the pump is able to produce the wells with flow rates up to 1800 BFPD at depths of 700 Mt. instead of Costly ESP which is expected to not produce such gassy depleted wells, also OTP pump has better durability than the conventional SRP to produce in such harsh conditions due to increased balls sizes that can overcome sand and gas production troubles, also OTP could be run in 3.5’’ TBG sizes instead of 4.5’’ TBG size that designed to be run inside, thus due to usage of innovative idea "On-Off tool associated with the plunger thus helps running the whole pump altogether and connecting with rods" the second solution applied is to produce the wells with high clearance plunger of -0.011 instead of current -0.003 SRP; which resulted in increasing the mean time between failures (MTBF) of pump sticking to 12 months instead of 3 months SRP lifetime, the third applied solution is placing more than pump size in one completion string (i.e. placing pump seating nipple of 2.25’’ rod pump with 2.75’’ TBG pump; which give the opportunity switching the failed pump to the other pump with using of simple pulling unit), the last applied solution is placing poor boy gas anchor below perforations which working as gas separations and sand trap in the same time

Results, Observations, Conclusions

However, the very harsh production condition; KEE was able to produce the wells with the maximum possible production rates with controlled failure rates and able to achieve an exceptional production targets for the fourth year in a row.

Novel/Additive Information

Whenever the operations are challenged with cost optimizations; which require lower expenditure and higher potential to be produced, searching for such a kind innovative solution is highly effective to achieve the corporation's goals.