Abstract
There is a growth trend of hard-to-recover oil reserves around the world, due to the development of heavy and viscous oil. Heavy oil is becoming an essential part of the raw material base now. One of the technologies of extra-viscous oil production is steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) which imposes significant operating restrictions on used equipment. First of all, it is the ability of the submersible unit to work at high temperatures of the pumped liquid. Equipment testing with the establishment of its efficiency and reliability in conditions close to the real operation is a very important issue.
To solve this problem stand testing was conducted to identify the most temperature-loaded elements of serial electrical submersible pump (ESP), and the complete high-temperature ESP was designed and manufactured. The high-temperature ESP incorporates new design solutions and new materials.
To confirm technical characteristics of new ESP, tests were carried out on the stand-well for research of submersible equipment at temperatures up to 250 °C. The unit was tested in periodic mode with a total time of work 80 hours. Fluid temperature is maintained during stops not less than 160 °C and during testing - not less than 180 °C. In the course of work head-energy parameters of unit were measured, as well as the temperature on the housing of protector and motor.
Testing of the complete high-temperature ESP was successful. It allowed avoiding costly and time-consuming stage of debugging in the field conditions. The conducted work confirmed the possibility of the effective ESP utilizing for SAGD technology.
