High Rate ESP Application in Onshore Rajasthan Fields: A Case Study
Authors: Jha M. , Singh R. , Chavan C. , Karthik R. , Simpson A. , Sudharshana J. 
Published: June 2014

This paper describes the selection, design, successful application and performance monitoring of Electrical Submersible Pumps (ESP) in the giant Mangala oil field and Thumbli water field situated in the Barmer basin in Rajasthan, India. Mangala oil field contains in excess of 1 billion barrels of STOIIP (Stock Tank Oil Initially in Place) in high-quality fluvial reservoirs. The field was brought on production in August 2009 and is currently producing at the plateau production rate of 150,000 bopd of which approximately more than one- third of the oil production is from the ESP oil wells.

To support the water requirement of Mangala and other satellite oil fields, Thumbli source water field was developed with 5 water production wells with up to 4 wells operating at a time. Each of these water wells is installed with 60,000 bwpd capacity pumps and the field is currently producing up to 225,000 bwpd to meet the water requirements of Mangala and other satellite fields.

The Mangala oil field is a multilayer, multi-Darcy reservoir, has waxy viscous crude with in-situ oil viscosity up to 22 cp and wax content in the range of 18 to 26%. The field was developed using hot water flood for pressure maintenance. Significant production challenges included unfavorable mobility ratio with early water cut and hence the early requirement of artificial lift to maintain the plateau production rate. The field has 12 horizontal producers and 92 deviated producers. ESP was selected as the artificial lift method for the high rate horizontal producers while hot water jet pumping was selected as the artificial lift method for low rate deviated oil wells. Each horizontal well is capable of producing up to 15,000 blpd and high rate ESPs were designed and installed to deliver the production requirement. Currently 8 of the 12 horizontal producers are on ESP lift and the remaining four wells are planned for ESP installation in the near future. Apart from two early ESP failures during installation, ESPs have had a good run life; the paper also describes lessons learnt from the infant mortalities.

The Thumbli water field, located ~20 km southeast of Mangala field has been developed to meet the water requirement of Mangala and other satellite fields. Thumbli water aquifer is a shallow water field which contains water of ~ 5000 ppm salinity with dissolved CO2, oxygen, chlorides and sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB). 5 high capacity water wells were drilled in Thumbli field to meet the huge water demand from Mangala for water injection in Mangala and satellite field injector wells, hot water circulation in oil production wells and associated water requirement for boilers etc. 1000 HP water well ESPs were designed to produce up to 60,000 bwpd from each well with installed water production capacity of up to 300,000 bwpd from Thumbli field.

A state of the art ESP control and monitoring architecture including ESP tornado plotting was developed and successfully implemented in the ICSS to remotely operate, monitor and optimize ESP well performance from the central control room within Mangala field and from the company headquarter located in Gurgaon.