Having the means to evaluate different forms of artificial lift efficiently early in the planning cycle significantly improves the ability to influence other planning decisions such as well count, well design, and facility capacities and to realize the potential benefits made available by new artificial-lift technologies. This paper focuses on a fit-for-purpose methodology to evaluate well-production performance for a wide range of artificial-lift techniques.

Introduction

In a typical artificial-lift selection process, the first stage, screening, involves considering a wide range of artificial-lift techniques and their suitability regarding fluid types, reservoir properties, and operating environment. Once a short list of feasible lift techniques is determined, a more-in-depth comparison of these options is undertaken by forecasting the performance over the life of the field. Options for generating such forecasts range from simple spreadsheet calculations to fully integrated asset models coupling detailed reservoir, well, and facilities models. The choice of forecasting technology depends largely on the field size and complexity. The next step is to perform an economic analysis to guide the ultimate selection of the preferred lift techniques. The economic analysis accounts for the capital and operational expenditure associated with each lift technique and uses the production profile to generate net-present-value estimates.