The following is an update to an earlier paper compiled and presented in April 1991 at the ESP roundtable held in Houston, Texas.
This paper contains referenced categories of problems that have been encountered in field operations and the solutions that have been found to the problems. The discussion for each problem/solution set is brief, but serves as an index to the particular reference, where more detail can be found. The discussion is restricted to field cases. Many excellent studies such as design techniques and recommended procedures are not covered since they are not in the context of a field study containing problems and solutions. Also, some field operational papers were not included if they presented identical information. This study was originally intended to be review of the field cases and a summary of various failures and their causes as a function of the conditions present. However, when beginning to review the papers in the literature, it became obvious that it is rare for a given paper to list detailed field conditions. In fact out of the fifty or so references examined here, only a few contained sufficient field condition data which would have allowed problems and solutions to be correlated to conditions. In addition to categorized and referenced problems and solutions, new innovations, products and operating techniques are presented.
Beginning at the surface, equipment and associated problems and solutions to these problems mentioned in the 105 paper bibliographies of the field cases will be presented. Some of the solutions will appear to be very obvious or simple, but the appearance of the problem and solution will allow the user to reference the paper where it originated and to read in further depth on the subject.
A tabular format is used to present the problems and solutions provided in the case studies. It will be subdivided by whether it is a reservoir, completion, or equipment problem/solution category. In each category, the survey that will be given includes:
Ref: The reference number of the paper from the bibliography.
#ESP. The number of ESPs reported, in the paper, installed.
Yr: The year the paper was published.
Location: The geographical location of the field.
Problem: A short description of the problem.
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