Beam Pumping Automation Of Heavy Oil Wells

At Scimitar Egypt

Nael N. Sadek, Lufkin Automation, Mohamed Ghareeb, Lufkin Industries,

Ahmed El Gatase, Scimitar Production Egypt

Abstract

Worldwide, the conventional oil resources are depleted, heavy oil reserves available in various
parts of the world become increasingly important as a secure future energy source. When a
heavy oil well is being stimulated by cyclic steam injection and an artificial lift method is
necessary, immediately rod pumping is the first one to enter in action and appear in the
scenario. Mainly, it is due to the fact that this method offers a high adaptability to high
temperatures generated by the steam injection in the well. What is more, oil productions for
these wells are in the ranges that could be driven by using rod pumping units.

This presentation will show how automation can optimize the operation of the beam pumping
system to overcome erratic flow in cases of cyclic steam injection and also the common rod
floating problem. This could be achieved by automatically varying the pumping speed based
on the downhole pump condition and also the polished rod loads. Successful example will be
shown for this special application at Issran field in the Eastern desert of Egypt.

Introduction

Scimitar Production Egypt Ltd. Has the exclusive rights to operate and develop heavy oil
production in a 72 square kilometer portion of the Ras Issran concession area. The Issran oil
field is located 290KM southeast of Cairo and 3KM inland from the western shore of the Gulf
of Suez covering 20,000 acres 1,2. Figure 1 shows the general location of Issran field within
Egypt while Figure 2 shows the detailed division of Issran field.

In 2003, Scimitar initiated a Reservoir Engineering Study to evaluate Enhanced Oil Recovery
(EOR) in the Upper Dolomite of the Issran Oil Field. The Upper Dolomite was targeted for
this work due to its large OOIP “more than 50 % of the concession OOIP” and its low
estimated primary recovery of “<1%” 1.

The major heavy oil accumulations occur within shallow Miocene Dolomites and Limestone
(Upper Dolomite, Lower Dolomite, Gharandal and Nukhul Limestone) and sandstones (Zeit),
the average API from all zones is between 10 to 12 API.

Scimitar pioneered the first successful thermal project in Egypt where it was done on the
Upper Dolomite Formation. In 2004, two CSS (cycle steam stimulation) wells and one
observation well were drilled in what was then termed the Southern Lobe of the Issran Oil
Field. Currently there are 190 oil producing wells, 80 wells are cold production, 400 well are
paned for steam project, 160 are drilled, 110 wells are completed and on production.

This paper will demonstrate the successes of applying Variable Speed Drives with Rod Pump
Control for optimization of Issran Cyclic Steam Stimulated wells.

MEALF 2009, Beam Pumping Automation of Heavy Oil Wells at Scimitar Egypt 1
Issran Field Steam Injection Process

Generally the oilfield steam generation system is a complex web of many interconnected
mechanical devices that are outfitted with various instruments and safety devices to ensure the
safe and efficient delivery of steam. At Issran field, the Steamers used for injection are:

• 20 MBTU Mobile Steamer

• 50 MBTU Steamers, 4 steamers are in service and planed for 50 more steamers. Each
steamer is capable of producing 3300 BBL Steam per day

For injection purposes at Issran field, wells are drilled in Hexagonal with spot in the middle
patterns (Fig 3). Steam is injected in cycles to the well casing. The process of injection is
controlled by the amount of injected steam in each well. Initially it was 50,000 BBL of steam.
Currently it reduced to 30 000 BBL of steam. After injecting this amount of steam, the well is
shut in for soaking period which varies from 3 days to 7 days. It is followed by venting the
well casing to atmospheric pressure. When the casing pressure reaches zero PSI the well is set
back to be on production. The frequency of steam cycles varies according to well productivity.
The maximum number of cycles occurred so far was on well CSS-4A which was 4 cycles.
Wells are grouped in “Satellites” to simplify the injection and production. Each “Satellite”
consists of a number of wells varies from 15 to 24 wells.

Artificial Lift System For Cyclic Steam Injection Wells

When an oil well is being stimulated by cyclic steam injection and an artificial lift method
is necessary, immediately rod- pumping is the first one to enter in action and appear
in the scenario. Generally, rod pumps have proven to be the best artificial lift method in
heavy oil reservoirs, especially for heavy crude oil at densities between 0.96 and 1.0 g/ cu cm
4,5
. Mainly, it is due to the fact that this method offers a high adaptability to high temperatures
generated by the steam injection in the well.

Generally in Issran Oil Field most of steam wells’ completions are identical; figure 4
illustrates a sample sketch of a steam well.

Thermal Well Pumping Problems

Thermal wells are generally associated with low gravity, high viscosity crudes. Some of the
pumping problems associated with such wells include rod floating, sand production, steam
flashing, varying produced gravity, varying inflow rates, and system operational problems.

In such type of wells, the rate of movement of the sucker rod on the down stroke is greatly
influenced by fluid viscosity. In steam operations, prior to steam breakthrough, the downhole
temperatures are normally low that the oil tends to stay viscous. The viscous oil can cause
viscous drag in the rod string. During the down stroke only gravitational forces aid the rod
movement and the frictional forces can considerably slow down the rod movement.

MEALF 2009, Beam Pumping Automation of Heavy Oil Wells at Scimitar Egypt 2
The rate at which the rods move on the down stroke is called the rod fall or rod float. Thus, the
rod float rate constrains the beam pumping unit operation. Attempting to run the surface unit
at rod float condition will result in the polished rod clamp and carrier bar to separate on down
stroke. The resulting collision between the downward moving damp and rod string upward
moving carrier bar can cause major damage to both surface and downhole equipment.

In the past, many operators avoid rod float conditions by lowering the pumping speed through
the use of motor sheaves. This will restricts well productivity and will result in the loss of
average production. Some operators use a longer stroke surface unit and downhole pump to
increase production3.

In cyclic steam injection, pumping speed (stroke per minutes) is constantly optimized during
each production cycle after steam injection. Speed is normally higher and constant at the
beginning and will slow down with time until end of cycle due to increasing the
presenting of the cold crude. The worst is that the slowest part of the pumping speed will be in
the down stroke due to rod floating. The next section will present how this problem was
overcame using the latest technology of Rod pump controllers with Variable Speed Drives.

Rod Pump Controller With Variable Speed Drive

Currently the road float problem is being overcome by using rod pump controller associated
with variable speed drive. A Rod Pump Controller, RPC, can control a beam pumping well
based on downhole condition using two surface measurements which are Polished Rod Load
and Position. This technology leads to the optimization of most of the beam pumping wells,
however, for heavy oil wells the situation is different because of the high viscosity of the oil
and more advanced technology is required for this type of special application. Using a VSD,
Variable Speed Drive, with built in RPC is a three-in-one as it replaced the electrical panel,
perform RPC monitoring and advanced VSD control. All the mentioned features come in one
piece of equipment, the RPC-VSD.

In our paper we are studying the effect of one of the advanced rod pump controllers that we
will refer to as the Smart Well Manager, SWM. The SWM is a pre-programmed device
mounted at the well site that gathers, processes, stores, and analyzes analog data obtained from
a load cell mounted between the clamp and the carrier bar at the polished rod and digital data
obtained from Hall Effects (two digital position sensors at the motor for RPM and the crank
arm). The SWM uses the data from these input devices to monitor and control the operation of
the pumping unit and to display graphic data on a LCD display or portable laptop computer in
a format easy to understand.

The Polished Rod Load Cell (PRLC) and Hall-Effect transducers combination of input
sensors, see figure 5, is preferred for downhole percent fillage control and in-depth analysis of
the pump cards when accurate surface dynagraph data needs to be obtained. The PRLC
provides a quantitative measurement of the load on the rod string. It is mounted on top of the
carrier bar under the rod clamp. The PRLC directly measures the weight of the rod string and
fluid column on the pump plunger. A spherical washer set between the PRLC and the carrier
bar ensures concentric loading even if the carrier bar is tilted. Two Hall-Effect transducers are
used. One transducer measures precise motor speed and the second transducer marks the crank
arm passage at the bottom of each stroke. These two digital signals, coupled with precise
pumping unit dimensional data (from the controller’s database), allow the SWM to accurately
calculate surface stroke position. In addition to accuracy, the two Hall-Effect transducers offer

MEALF 2009, Beam Pumping Automation of Heavy Oil Wells at Scimitar Egypt 3
the advantage of being able to monitor for belt slippage and to instantaneously shutdown the
pumping unit when a “locked rotor” equipment failure occurs.

The SWM displays a real-time dynagraph trace for on-location analysis of present pumping
conditions (see figure 6). The SWM also stores a number of dynagraph cards as a historical
record as follows: Five most recent strokes, Single stroke at the last transition from minimum
pump strokes to pumping, Last five strokes before a shutdown decision is recorded for each of
the last two shutdown decisions and Single-stroke card at the start of the minimum pump
stroke well state.

Some of SWM’s basic purposes are to control the well to save wear and tear on the
equipment, to save power, to identify problems in the lift equipment and well that deter
efficient operation, and to provide a continuous production test (SWT). The SWT process
uses the down hole pump as a meter. The heart of the process is the computed pump
dynamometer card from which stroke quantities can be read to also determine liquid and gas
volumes. 6

The SWM-VSD control method is very similar to the SWM-RPC where it is based on the
fillage of the downhole pump, however, instead of shutting down the unit for programmed
downtime in case of low pump fillage the VSD changes the speed of the unit to higher or
lower speed. In the example shown below in figure 7, the fillage set point is 90% of the
downhole pump with a dead band of 5%. This means that anywhere between 85~95%, the
SWM will maintain the speed of the Beam Pumping unit. If the fillage goes below the dead
band then the SWM sends a command to the VSD to reduce the speed of the Beam Pumping
unit while if the fillage is above the dead band then the SWM sends a command to the VSD to
speed up the Beam Pumping unit. This leads to maintaining the fillage of the downhole pump
within the dead band by changing the speed of the pumping unit all the day which could be
every stroke, if needed. This also leads to lowering the operating fluid level to get down to the
pump level to maximize production by lifting all the available oil in the casing.

As discusses, one of the common problems of high viscosity oil wells produced by beam
pumping is the “Rod Floating” problem. Rod floating happens when the speed of the pumping
unit is higher than the speed of the rods’ fall into the well where rods tend to float on the
downstroke then hitting (between clamp and carrier bar) takes place in the upstroke. Using the
RPC-VSD it senses that there is no Load, “zero” load, measured by the load sensor (see fig 8)
which indicates the separation between the polished rod clamp and the carrier bar i.e. rod
floating, and it varies the speed of the pumping unit to slow it down in order to match he
pumping unit speed to the sucker rod speed in fluid to overcome the problem during the
downstroke and then speed up the unit on the upstroke. This leads to slower average stroke
speed, however, the gross and net downhole stoke is much higher due to the plunger moving
all the way down instead of floating and moving partially.

The Economics Of Automation Of Beam Pump Wells

• Reduce Electrical Consumption to an average of 10 to 30%.

• Reduce Well Maintenance Costs where savings are between 25 to 75% based on the
reduction of rod, tubing, pump and stuffing box maintenance.
• Increase Production within an average incremental increase of 2 to 5%.

MEALF 2009, Beam Pumping Automation of Heavy Oil Wells at Scimitar Egypt 4
 • Surveillance leads to savings of at least 10% to 15% in quicker response to well
problems.

Benefits Of Installing SWM-VSD For Heavy Oil Beam Pump Wells 7

• Optimization of operating conditions for each well.

• Optimizes well production to meet well inflow and maintain required fluid level.
• Reduction of lost production; quick return on investment
• Preventive maintenance and reduced failures thus save OPEX.
• Parameter history for each well
• Soft Start; less electrical power is required for the startup of the Pumping unit so
requires smaller size generator or overhead power.
• Reduced electrical costs
• Reduced return to production after electrical outages
• Optimal use of personnel
• With a SCADA program, central operation (start/stop), automatic dynagraph card
analysis
o More time for engineering and planning
o Alarms for failures, theft
• Environmental Protection
• Firmware upgradeable technology to easily implement new features.

Results Of SWM-VSD Installation At Issran Field

Due to the Heavy oil problems that Scimitar Egypt faced at Issran field such as floated rods,
low inflow, gas locking, etc, it was decided to implement SWM-VSD on a number of pilot
wells. The SWM-VSD is installed on 11 wells in the cyclic steam area where most of them
showed enhancement in both operation and production with minimum mechanical failures and
increased daily production. The installation was completed in May 2008, however, to make
the best use of the equipment Scimitar relocated some of the VSDs to other wells where the
last relocation was in the last week of August 2008. The equipment relocation takes place
during the downtime of well production due to steaming or soaking. To demonstrate the
results, we chose three wells; CSS-1, CSS-15 and CSS-49. The comaprison of before and after
installing the SWM-VSD for these wells is shown in tables 1,2 and 3. Figure 9 shows some of
the VSD pilot wells, marked in red, with relation to other producing wells in the Cylic Steam
area.

MEALF 2009, Beam Pumping Automation of Heavy Oil Wells at Scimitar Egypt 5
Table 1: Well CSS-1, effect of installing SWM VSD

CSS 1 Before Installing SWM-VSD After Installing SAM VSD

Workover TBG Flushing None Since installation in

Activities Swabbing 26/8/2008

Drops to zero or builds up with Stable on acceptable value due to

Fluid Level no production due to plugging
of downhole pump intake
No production many times
Production
through the week
optimization of production rate
through SWM-VSD
Increasing total fluid produced

Table 2: Well CSS-49, effect of installing SWM VSD

CSS 49 Before Installing SWM-VSD After Installing SAM VSD

TBG & Casing Flushing

periodically None Since installation in
Workover
Swabbing 1/6//2008
Activities
Belts Replacement

Production Non stable and varies a lot Stable and Increasing

Effected by Steam Cycle in the

Water Cut Not Effected
adjacent wells

Table 3: Well CSS-15, effect of installing SWM VSD

CSS 15 Before Installing SWM-VSD After Installing SWM-VSD

Workover TBG Flushing None Since installation in

Activities Swabbing 26/8/2008

Drops to zero or builds ups with Stable on acceptable value due to

Fluid Level no production due to plugging of optimization of production rate
pump intake through SWM VSD

Production Stable After installation but did not increase

MEALF 2009, Beam Pumping Automation of Heavy Oil Wells at Scimitar Egypt 6
Conclusions

SWM-VSD helped Scimitar to diagnose the problems faced at Issran field such as floated
rods, low inflow, gas locking, etc where it fixed them automatically based on dynamometer
cards interpretation and it also optimized the production through getting the maximum
recoverable oil with less problems and less workover activities. This lead to decreasing the
downtime, workover activities, mechanical failures and power consumption thus decreasing
overall operating costs.

Recommendations

All heavy oil wells produced by beam pumps needs to be controlled by a Variable Speed
Drive where the control is based on real downhole pump condition for optimum production
and reduced Opex. Also the rod float mitigation feature should be basic part of the control
method to eliminate the common rod floating problem thus eliminates related failures and
optimize production.

On the other hand, with such a big number of producing wells, putting a SCADA host is
deemed necessary to save driving time to gather data from the wells or change parameters for
optimization. With a SCADA system in place everything done at the equipment at the wells
site could be done remotely from the field office for better optimization and much quicker
reaction.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the management of Scimitar Production Egypt for providing
the necessary information for the field experience and the permission to publish this paper and
share it with the field experts.

MEALF 2009, Beam Pumping Automation of Heavy Oil Wells at Scimitar Egypt 7
References

1. Aly Mousa et al “Steam Cycling Project for Heavy Oil Production from Issran Field -
Case study” paper presented on MOC 2008 May 2008 Alex , Egypt.
2. “Annual Report 2006”, Rally Energy Corporation
3. “http://www.rallyenergy.com/default.asp?mode=displayoperations&operationid=43”,
Rally Energy Corporation website.
4. Dou Hong'en et al “Application of Gas Lift Technology to a High-Water-Cut Heavy-
Oil Reservoir in Intercampo Oilfield, Venezuela” SPE paper number 97370-PA
5. Partha S. Sarathi and David IC Olsen “Practical Aspects of Steam Injection Processes
A Handbook for Independent Operators” Prepared by lit Research Institute National
Institute for Petroleum and Energy Research Bartlesville, OK , Oct 1992.
6. DaCunha et al “The value of Automation in Well Testing of Beam Pumping wells”,
Middle East Artificial Lift Forum – Muscat, Oman, February 2007.
7. Sadek et al “Beam Pumping Automation for Heavy Oil wells”, SPE Technology
Transfer Workshop – Cairo, Egypt, May 2007.

MEALF 2009, Beam Pumping Automation of Heavy Oil Wells at Scimitar Egypt 8
 Fig 1: General location of Issran field 3

Fig 2: Issran field division details 2

MEALF 2009, Beam Pumping Automation of Heavy Oil Wells at Scimitar Egypt 9
 Fig 3: Hexagonal with spot in the middle patterns

Fig 4: Typical Issran wells completion

MEALF 2009, Beam Pumping Automation of Heavy Oil Wells at Scimitar Egypt 10
 Fig 5: Installation of RPC/VSD 6

(from Load Cell) Surface Stroke Length

Surface Card

Gross Downhole
Stroke Length

Fluid Load Downhole /

Net Downhole Pump Card
Stroke Length

(from Hall Effects)

Fig 6: Real-time Dynagraph Screen showing Surface & Downhole cards 6

MEALF 2009, Beam Pumping Automation of Heavy Oil Wells at Scimitar Egypt 11
 Fig 7: VSD Control Method Based On Downhole Pump Condition 7

Lost Stroke
Length

Rod Float

Fig 8: Surface Card showing Floating Rods 7

MEALF 2009, Beam Pumping Automation of Heavy Oil Wells at Scimitar Egypt 12
 BBL Oil

0
20
40
60
80
100
22-Jul-08
24-Jul-08

26-Jul-08

28-Jul-08
30-Jul-08

01-Aug-08

03-Aug-08
05-Aug-08

07-Aug-08

09-Aug-08
11-Aug-08

13-Aug-08

15-Aug-08
17-Aug-08

19-Aug-08

21-Aug-08
23-Aug-08

25-Aug-08

Date
27-Aug-08

29-Aug-08

31-Aug-08
02-Sep-08
Fig 9: SWM-VSD wells location
04-Sep-08

06-Sep-08

MEALF 2009, Beam Pumping Automation of Heavy Oil Wells at Scimitar Egypt
08-Sep-08

10-Sep-08

12-Sep-08
14-Sep-08

16-Sep-08

18-Sep-08

Fig 10: Oil Production of CSS-1 before and after installing SWM-VSD
20-Sep-08

22-Sep-08

24-Sep-08
26-Sep-08

13
28-Sep-08
 BBL Oil BBL Oil

0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
01-Jun-08 01-Jan-08
08-Jun-08 07-Jan-08
15-Jun-08 13-Jan-08
22-Jun-08
19-Jan-08
29-Jun-08
25-Jan-08
06-Jul-08
31-Jan-08
13-Jul-08
06-Feb-08
20-Jul-08
12-Feb-08
27-Jul-08
18-Feb-08
03-Aug-08
24-Feb-08
10-Aug-08
17-Aug-08 01-Mar-08

24-Aug-08 07-Mar-08

Date
Date
31-Aug-08 13-Mar-08
07-Sep-08 19-Mar-08

in WC%
increase
CSS-49 After SAM VSD
CSS-49 Before SAM VSD

14-Sep-08 25-Mar-08
31-Mar-08

MEALF 2009, Beam Pumping Automation of Heavy Oil Wells at Scimitar Egypt
06-Apr-08
12-Apr-08
18-Apr-08

Fig 12: Oil Production of CSS-49 after installing SWM-VSD

Fig 11: Oil Production of CSS-49 before installing SWM-VSD

24-Apr-08
30-Apr-08
06-May-08
12-May-08

14
18-May-08