ENERGY SAVINGS FOR OIL EXTRACTION PUMPS
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011 at
9:30 AM
Filed under Oil Production Systems.
Question:
We are an oil production facility in California with more than 100 oil production wells. The artificial lift system is the sucker rod pumps. We would like to find out how we can calculate energy savings resulting from converting existing oil wells to “SMART” wells. The “SMART” well conversion can reduce water-to-oil ratio from an oil production well by using selectively perforated casing inside the well. The wells are currently operating 24/7 except for some maintenance down time.
Answer:
Reduction in energy consumption, in this application, is highly dependent on the oil-to-water ratio before and after the conversion to a SMART well from the current state. There are some highly complex geological modeling tools available in the market to predict oil-to-water ratio after the “SMART” conversion. Based on our experience with more than 500 oil production wells, the reduction in water content can be anywhere between 5% and 50%.
Energy savings will be achieved in: 1) Energy Required to Lift Product Fluid (Artificial Lift), 2) Energy required for surface pumping, and finally, 3) Energy required for reinjection. Annual kWh savings is the difference between the pre-installation kWh and the post installation kWh. Energy savings is calculated based on the oil and water flow rates for the well for baseline and installed condition.
It is important that the measurement period for the water and oil flow rates be a reasonably representative period for the current operation so that the savings may be reliably calculated. Additionally, well depth, surface discharge pressure, and the re-injection pump discharge pressure are required. Energy savings is calculated as the difference between the annual baseline and post installation energy consumption. The annual operating hours should allow for the maintenance outages as well. Since this type of pump operates 24/7, we recommend that you calculate the peak kW demand savings by dividing the annual kWh savings with the annual operating hours. This is reasonable because the pump operates 24/7 except for some maintenance time and the kW demand is expected to remain constant.