Reciprocating Submersible Pump

Improves Oil Production

S ubmersible pumping by use of

a linear motor is crucial for oil
production in a low-permeability
ed materials costs, less risk, and no issues
caused by the accidental dropping of rods
and the eccentric wear associated with
reservoir, especially in China. However, the conventional rod-pumping method.
improving the life, reliability, and Either rotary or linear motors can
performance of the submersible be used in rodless pumping. The linear 4
linear motor and reducing energy motor is a relatively new type of elec- 3 2 1
5
consumption are challenging. Several tric motor. The linear motor has its sta-
6
novel designs for lubrication, hydraulic tor and rotor in linear motion to pro-
buffer, floating suction device, automatic duce a linear force along its length. It 7
motor drive, and control methods were is designed to convert electrical ener- 8
proposed. The technology is simple to gy directly into linear mechanical ener- 9
implement and can be adapted to low- gy. Although linear motors have been
production wells, directional wells, and traced back to the 19th century, they 10
horizontal wells. are not widely used. Linear motors have
been advanced and have proved to be 11
economically viable for industrial appli-
12
Introduction cation. In 2001, North China Oilfield
Rod pumping is a conventional oil-lift Company experimented with the linear- 13
method in China, with more than 80% motor-pumping technique. The linear-
of oil wells across the country using this motor-pumping device used a downhole 11. Transformer 18. Cable-protection
technique. However, conventional sys- linear motor to lift the oil by reciprocat- 12. Converter 10. mechanism
tems are more suited to high-production ing movement. 13. Controller 19. Sand-prevention
14. Cable-embraced 10. plunger pump
wells (e.g., in the range of 5–100 m3/d) 10. wellhead 10. Linear-motor
than to low-fluid-yield wells. Convention- Overall System 15. Cable 10. mover cylinder
al systems have high energy consump- Fig. 1 shows the submersible-pump- 16. Centralizer or 11. Sealed chamber
10. tubing anchor 12. Linear motor
tion and low efficiency when applied to system design. It consists of a linear 17. BOP 13. Buffer and
low-fluid-yield wells such as directional, motor, sand-prevention plunger pump, 10. lubricating devices
deviated, or sidetracked wells. There- blowout preventer (BOP), stabilizer or
fore, a rodless pumping technique was tubing anchor, cable-embraced well- Fig. 1—Overall system design.
developed. In China, approximately 20% head, cable, motor control, and buffer
of the oil wells use rodless pumping with and lubricating devices. The plunger prevent oil spillage at the surface. This
a nonlinear (rotary) motor, representing pump and linear motor are combined rodless submersible-pump system does
30% of the country’s oil production and into one system in which the linear not have eccentric wear associated with
accounting for approximately one-third motor is connected directly to the plung- conventional rod-pumping technology,
of total energy consumption in oil pro- er pump. Therefore, the linear recipro- thereby saving rod costs and associated
duction. Compared with rod pumping, cating motion of the motor can be used tubing-replacement and repair costs.
the rodless technique has lower associat- directly to pump oil. The BOP is used to
Lubrication and Cooling
This article, written by Senior Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights Lubrication and cooling are major fac-
tors to ensure safe operation of the
of paper IPTC 14966, “Novel Reciprocating-Submersible-Pumping Technology for
motor. To improve the lubrication, an
Performance Improvements in Oil Production,” by Zhigang Wang, PetroChina,
automatic oil-pressure regulator and
prepared for the 2011 International Petroleum Technology Conference, Bangkok, a unique spiral-lubrication oil channel
Thailand, rescheduled to 7–9 February 2012. The paper has not been peer reviewed. were designed. By circulating the lubri-
cation oil, the cooling was improved.
Copyright 2012 International Petroleum Technology Conference. Reproduced by Fig. 2 shows the design of a lubrication
permission. and cooling structure.

For a limited time, the complete paper is free to SPE members at www.jptonline.org.

92 JPT • JULY 2012

 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
RESOURCES

11. Buffer plunger 16. Outlet

12. Inlet 17. Pressure-regulator valve for
13. Sand-scraping slot 11. lubrication-oil entry
14. Pressure-regulator spring for 18. Pressure-regulator spring for
11. lubrication-oil exit 11. lubrication-oil entry
15. Pressure-regulator valve for 19. Inlet
11. lubrication-oil exit 10. Mover

Fig. 2—Lubrication and cooling structure.

Collision and Sand Prevention packing were used in the initial sand-
Collisions can cause significant damage prevention design. However, the results
to the submersible pump, introduce large were not satisfactory. To enhance the
maintenance costs, and affect oil pro- performance, a forced-sand-prevention
duction. To avoid damage to the pump, valve was designed, as shown in Fig. 3, to
a device is placed at the lower end of the use high-pressure oil to force/flush sand
stator to prevent possible shock and colli- out of the pump’s working chamber.
sion damage to the motor when the mover
moves down to the stator tube. Also, a Automatic Motor Control
floating suction device was designed and An automatic-control technology for
placed at the lower end of the mover to motor start/stop was developed to enable
prevent the deposition of sand and impu- automatic start/stop on the basis of liquid
rities into the motor and oil. level to prevent operating the motor with
During submersible-pump oper- no load, thus increasing motor life. The
ation, it is very important to prevent initial method of control was to adjust the
sand from entering the pump and caus- lift and drop speeds. Tuning the refer-
ing significant damage. To address this ence interval mode improved with direct
issue, sand-control screens and special digital adjustment of the power and fre-

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

11. Outlet 14. Inlet ball valve 16. Pumping tube

12. Outlet ball valve 15. Plunger 17. Oil pipe
13. Inlet

Fig. 3—Forced-sand-prevention valve.

JPT • JULY 2012 93

 45 3 strokes/min. The new system achieved
a daily oil production of 2.8 t, with pump
40
Lift Height=400 m efficiency of 79% and energy consump-
35 tion of 30 kW-hr. Compared with the con-
Lift Height=600 m
ventional pumping method, energy con-
30
sumption was reduced by 51%. The test
Current, A

25 on this well was carried out over 90 days

and maintained stable operation. It also
20 met the requirements of low-yield pump-
15
ing and achieved low energy consump-
tion. Moreover, the ground automat-
10 ic-control and monitoring devices with
automatic-start/-stop technology met
5
the design expectations and function-
0 al operations. The system also showed
6 8 10 13 15 its feasibility in low-permeability reser-
Frequency, Hz voirs. The operation of the system was
Fig. 4—Current vs. frequency. protected by a series of safety functions
(e.g., current-overload protection, short-
quency of the stroke. The parameters can and at low frequencies, there was no sub- circuit protection, pump-collision pro-
be adjusted by a factor of from 0.1 to 15. stantial difference in current because the tection, and lightning protection).
However, considering the cooling and life target power was not being met at low Following the successful trial, a
of the motor, the set range is limited to frequencies for either case. However, at larger-scale test was carried out in Daq-
0.1 to 10. Lightning-protection compo- high frequency, when the frequency of ing oil field in northeast China. Recip-
nents were added for continued service the motor reached its target power, the rocating-submersible-pumping systems
during severe-weather conditions. current had to be increased to boost the were installed in 40 wells, including 13
power to meet the higher lifting needs. vertical wells, 25 directional wells, and
Field Test Therefore, the current was considerably 2 horizontal wells. The maximum pump
To test the performance of the recipro- higher at a lift height of 600 m than at depth was 1830 m, and the maximum
cating submersible pump, ground sim- 400 m. deviation angle was 30.5°. Among these
ulation was performed and field tests For each pump frequency, the higher 40 wells, 24 wells were new installa-
were carried out in vertical wells in a the lift height the higher the system effi- tions. The average daily fluid production
large oil field in northeastern China. ciency. The results also showed that when was 5.4 t, pump efficiency was greater
The test results enabled establishing the frequency increased, the system effi- than 85.0%, and daily energy consump-
motor characteristics and the relation- ciency increased. The system efficiency tion was 63.5 kW-hr. The other wells had
ship between operating parameters. was affected by the frequency: the high- good performances, with average daily
The data and results provided a theo- er the frequency, the lower the power fluid production of 2.5 t, pump efficien-
retical and a practical basis for further consumption and the higher the system cy greater than 77.4%, and energy con-
system improvement. efficiency. Therefore, when applicable, sumption of 42.1 kW-hr. On a per-well
Fig. 4 shows the measured results a high frequency should be favored over basis, the field test achieved an aver-
of the pump current vs. frequency under a low frequency to improve system effi- age daily liquid output of 4.2 t, average
different lift-height applications. At the ciency and reduce energy consumption. pump efficiency of 81.9%, and average
same lifting height, the current decreases The first on-site test with the system daily energy consumption of 54.9 kW-hr.
with the increase of frequency. This sug- was carried out in an oil well in which Fig. 5 shows that, compared with con-
gests that at the same lifting height, the a conventional oil-lifting system had ventional pumping, the new technology
current and frequency have a negative been used. The well depth was 1560 m, had much better performance. In terms
relation, although it shows more non- with the pump at 1233 m. The initial oil of the pump-maintenance interval, the
linearity at higher frequencies. At differ- pressure was 0.3 MPa, and the oil level longest was 416 days and the average
ent lifting heights (e.g., 400 and 600 m) was 558 m. The pump was operated at was 222 days. Overall, this reciprocating-
submersible-pumping technique has met
Pump efficiency, % Unit energy expectations of reliability, energy sav-
100 consumption, kW-hr/t ings, and high performance. It proved to
40
50 be practical and economically feasible for
20
low-yielding wells such as deviated wells,
0 0 directional wells, and horizontal wells. It
Conventional New Conventional New
technology technology technology technology
will have a significant positive effect on
oil production with further improvement
Fig. 5—Conventional vs. new pumping technology. and wider application. JPT

94 JPT • JULY 2012