ABSTRACT
In many cases of oil production, it becomes necessary to activate wells by a bottomhole pump to maintain sufficient flowrates to guarantee the profitability of production. A careful selection must be made among different processes, because the poor choice of an activation system could result in problems of reliability or inefficiency, leading to excessive operating costs.
The OPUS (Optimal Pumping Unit Search) system, by enabling a rational approach to various aspects of process selection, helps the oil producer to find the processes best suited to the field case considered.
On the one hand, OPUS integrates an expert system that synthesizes all the knowledge acquired on different systems such as sucker-rod pumps or progressive cavity pumps, hydraulic piston or jet pumps, submersible electric pumps or gas-lift. This knowledge base is used by an inference engine to make an optimum choice after analyzing all the technical and economic criteria. On the other hand, OPUS controls the use of technical sizing programs that support two-phase flows, and economic programs that estimate the unit cost per barrel produced with the aid of the processes chosen.
This system is now in its industrial operational phase and is successfully being used in various projects proving its qualities of flexibility and rapidity.
