Artificial Lift-Assisted Production Enhancement in Mature Oil Wells: A Case Study

Oil production is decreasing across the world due to natural depletion of the reservoirs. During the past decades, production from large number of oil wells has been decreased due to deletion of natural energy. Some of these wells are abundant and some of these are producing at their economic limit. To lift the oil and increase the productivity an additional energy is required which can reduce the flowing bottomhole pressure and decrease the pressure drawdown. Use of latest artificial lift technology to increase the production is now the main concern of all the companies. This research work is simulation base research conducted by using commercial simulator. Four different artificial lift methods are applied on a low productivity oil well named as Well X-1. The Well X-1 is drilled to depth of 7800 ft in a sandstone formation and is naturally flowing at the rate of 179, barrels of oil per day (BOPD) with Wellhead Flowing Pressure (WHFP) of 125 psig. Using the reservoir data and wellbore data of Well X-1, continuous gas lift, electrical submersible pump, jet pump and sucker rod pump lift method models are developed in the simulator. Based on technical evaluation, electrical submersible pump (ESP) lift method is selected to increase the oil production from Well X-1. ESP method resulted maximized production of 614 BOPD compared to all other artificial lift methods. Then economic evaluation of all the lift methods is carried out using spreadsheet and the results have shown that ESP method yields maximum net cash flow for the investment. Oil production from ESP lifted Well X-1 is further increased by using well intervention techniques which includes matrix acidizing and rig-less wireline additional perforation job. Matrix acidizing can significantly increase the oil production to 1309 BOPD compared to the wireline additional perforation.