SWC Funds 14 Projects
Advanced Technology for Infill and Recompletion Candidate Well Selection, Texas A&M University, MGV Energy and Quicksilver Resources. Research will focus on developing improved technology to rapidly assess infill and recompletion potential in marginal fields. Statistical methods of production data analysis developed for primary depletion processes will be extended to multiphase displacement processes, so the technology can be used in waterfloods. Analysis will be enhanced by incorporating seismic data. The approach will be demonstrated in a mature waterflood in Wyoming. Field Test GOAL Pumps, Brandywine Energy & Development Company (Brandywine), Lenape, Artex, and TBD. Brandywine, in part with earlier funding from the SWC, developed and tested prototype Gas Operated Automatic Lift (GOAL) pumps. Results using the prototypes were promising. This project will test GOAL pumps in several representative wells (one oil and several gas wells), providing the performance groundwork for broad application. Desalting Produced Water, T&G Technologies. T&G Technologies has developed improved desalination technologies, using aluminum heat exchanger tubes based on proprietary desalination technology, that significantly reduce costs. The process produces two streams—a distilled stream and a concentrated stream. Suspended and dissolved solids in the distilled stream are reduced by a factor of over 1,000, easily meeting standards for surface disposal. Results from prototype testing have been promising. Estimated costs of 12 to 15 cents per barrel provide a strong incentive for further testing. A 125 barrel per day unit, typical of what might be installed at a well, will be built and its performance tested in this project. Vortex Flow Unit (In Three Separate Projects), Vortex Flow. The Vortex technology was originally developed to convey solids, such as coal, over long distances by creating very specific flow characteristics within a pipe. Initial versions of the Vortex Oil and Gas Unit have been fabricated and limited field tests in a flowline environment have been promising. In three separate projects, with different industry partners, work will establish performance of the Vortex unit: (1) downhole, (2) in gas gathering systems, and (3) in flowlines. All together, the projects will establish optimal operating conditions for the Vortex Unit in different environments. Work will also develop a lower cost PVC version of the Vortex Unit. Field Testing New Technologies for Lifting Liquids from Gas Wells, Colorado School of Mines. In an on-going project supported by SWC, devices for stimulating droplet production are being developed in the laboratory through bench-top and flow-loop testing. This project will field test the most promising technologies and continue flow-loop testing and modeling work. Identifying Effects of Corrosion on Stripper Wells, James Engineering, Inc. Earlier studies indicate that mechanical failures, many of which are corrosion related, account for 23% of the major problems contributing to abnormal production decline in stripper wells. This study will develop methodologies, including decision trees and a procedures guide, to identify the most effective corrosion mitigation technologies. Field research will be conducted on several hundred wells in Ohio and West Virginia. The study will culminate in an application guide detailing potential areas of corrosion and cost effective corrosion mitigation procedures. Improving Injectivity in Low Permeability Reservoirs, Big Sinking Field, Lee County, Kentucky. Surtek, Inc. and Bretagne. Big Sinking oil field in Lee County, Kentucky is a mature waterflood. Increased injection would increase total fluid, and accordingly, oil production, but injectivity needs to be improved to increase injection rate. This project will develop and field test a chemical solution that lowers oil saturation near the injection well (about 50 ft), thereby increasing injectivity. Low Cost Oil-Water Separator for Stripper Wells, Pumping Solutions, Rocky Mountain Oilfield Test Center (RMOTC). Low volume electric submersible pumps (ESPs) that have recently come on the market allow for a whole new class of downhole separators, called tubing separators. A tubing separator uses the volume of the production tubing between the pump and the surface as a gravity separator. Tubing separators can be very low cost—less than $100 because they use the production tubing as the majority of the structure and are mechanically very simple. This project will build a tubing separator and test it at RMOTC, piggybacking work on an existing test at no cost to the SWC. Using the Production Pump to Continuously Clean Stripper Wells, Pumping Solutions and Rocky Mountain Oilfield Test Center (RMOTC). For many producing wells, solids production is a prevalent problem. Rather than traditional removal approaches (bailing, scraping, chemicals), this project will test an alternative approach, using a new solids-tolerant, hydraulically-driven diaphragm pump to lift solids to the surface. Because it is solids tolerant, this pump can be placed below the perforations, which increases oil production and, unfortunately, solids. Small diameter reinforced plastic tubing that increases pumped fluid velocity in the tubing will be employed to sweep debris to the surface. Quantifying Bypassed Gas Reserves and Damaged Production Zones in Gas Stripper Wells, Wind River Basin, Wyoming, Innovative Discovery Technologies (IDT). In the Rocky Mountain Laramide Basins, there are many underpressured gas reservoirs located between normally pressured rocks above and overpressured rocks below. Anticipating overpressuring, operators typically use an overcompensated mud program as they approach the transition from normal to anomalous pressure. This causes gas-charged, underpressured rock/fluid systems to be badly damaged or bypassed. IDT has seen this in 30 of 45 wells studied in the Wind River and Green River Basins. Using the large amounts of data that IDT has access to in the Wind River Basin, this study will assess the underpressured gas-charged volume in the Lance-Fort Union reservoir in the Wind River Basin. Reservoir Characterization of the Wileyville Oil Field, West Virginia Geological Survey (WVGS). The Wileyville field in northern West Virginia produces oil from the Upper Devonian Gordon and Gordon Stray sandstones. A line drive water injection project there started producing oil only after approximately 120,000 barrels were injected. Proposed work will establish the nature and degree of heterogeneity within the Gordon interval through reservoir characterization, and evaluate any uphole potential. The study will complement current work on the Wileyville field within a SWC project. Review and Selection of Velocity Tubing Strings, Advanced Resources International (ARI) and Great Lakes Energy Partners, LLC. Smaller diameter tubing strings (velocity tubing strings) are one option for keeping liquids unloaded from stripper gas wells. Although there are a wide variety of small diameter completion options available, specifications and performance data are not gathered and readily available. Researchers will survey tubing and coiled tubing suppliers in order to obtain performance measures for compilation into a stand-alone reference. In addition, regional availability of tubing and coiled tubing providers as well as inventory will be determined. Further, literature will be reviewed to identify those two-phase correlations that are most applicable for stripper gas wells and small diameter production tubing. Liquid lifting performance curves will be developed and their efficacy demonstrated in three wells. Visit the SWC website (www.energy.psu.edu/swc/) for more detail about these projects. Two workshops are planned later this year, one in Oklahoma and one in Texas, to transfer results from 2001 projects. Check the website periodically for scheduling of those events. |
DOE’s Stripper Well Consortium (SWC), managed by Pennsylvania State University for the National Energy Technology Laboratory, funds short-term R&D focused on the development, demonstration and deployment of new technologies needed to improve the production performance of oil and natural gas stripper wells. Fourteen projects are being funded this year, bringing the total since inception (2001) to 27 projects. Brief descriptions of the funded projects follow.