Patent ID: 7212923

Claim:
A method for managing production of a rod pumped well by using a subsurface pump ( 44 ) as a meter comprising the steps of, generating a down hole pump card ( 212 ) from surface load and position measurements ( 208 , 210 ) of a rod pumping unit ( 10 ), determining a position of traveling valve (TV) opening ( 214 ) from said down hole pump card; determining from said down hole pump card a stroke distance S n ( 232 ) traveled by said plunger from said position of TV opening to a bottom of the stroke, determining the volume of free gas ΔV gas ( 220 ) remaining in the pump at TV opening, determining a distance S gas ( 222 ) of the stroke distance S n that corresponds to the volume of free gas ΔV gas remaining in the pump at TV opening, determining a distance S l ( 224 ) of the stroke distance that corresponds to the liquid stroke distance in the pump at TV opening from the equation, S l =S n −S gas , determining net liquid production ( 226 ) at pump pressure and temperature for said pumping cycle from the equation, Δ ⁢ ⁢ V 1 = π 4 ⁢ d 2 ⁢ S l where ΔV 1 is net liquid production measured in cubic dimension at the pump, d is the diameter of the pump measured in length dimension, and S l is measured at the pump in length dimension, converting ΔV l ( 228 ) at pump conditions to stock tank conditions, and producing a report of liquid production of said well ( 230 ).