The DSF, Indonesia Case Study

by Aan Akhmad Prayoga - Petroleum Engineer - PT Chevron Pacific Indonesia

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DSF, Indonesia

The proof is in the production.

Farr Plunger gets busy in a busy field

In DSF, there are 700 Stuck Pump (SP) jobs each year which are primarily caused by sand production. Annual total cost of this routine service is many millions of dollars. In addition, with the average 3-4 days of downtime per SP job there is over 2,1000 days of lost production associated with this downtime and not calculated in the above figure. Currently there is over 5,000 active, producing wells, identifying artificial lift SRP alternatives that can improve run life and reduce number of SP jobs performed would result in lower OPEX (*Operating Expense)(Less PS Jobs), higher production (overall reduction in downtime), and lower risk of HES (*Health, Environment, Safety) incidents (due to less rig work).

Three viable options were identified for a field trial after soliciting ideas and opinions from Service Suppliers, MSS (*Maintenance Supports & Services) Team, and Chevron Global Network to overcome these stuck pump issues:

  • 0.015″ fit Tubing Pump
  • Stroke - Thru Pump
  • 0.0002 fit FARR Plunger

The 2008-2009 PMT (*Production Management Team) HOOU (*Heavy Oil Operation Unit) Artificial Lift Lean Sigma confirmed that these artificial lift options had a longer run life than the standard 0.010” fit pump. Average run life was increased by 93 days, and 70% of the time produced a longer run life. During the 12 month trial period, there was an average reduction of 12 PS Jobs / month compared with baseline data.

Since the 0.002” fit FARR Plunger had encouraging results in low wellhead temperature wells, there was initiative to evaluate it in higher temperatures by modifying the pump to fit 0.005” considering thermal expansion. Not to long ago, 15 units of 0.005” fit FARR Plungers were tested, replacing either a Stroke-Thru or 0.015” Fit Pump that had failed. The results were encouraging and indicated that the 0.005” FARR Plunger exceeded the run life of the previous pump 71% of the time with additional incremental run of 44 days.

In-Depth Case Study

Coalinga, CA

Analysis of Coalinga Farr Plunger Data

The purpose of the Study
  • Analyze FARR™ plunger performance based on data from the Coalinga field to compare the performance of the Farr plunger to other plungers used in the same wells.
  • Based on field observations, the FARR™ was suspected to provide longer runtimes on average and require fewer well pulls than other plungers used in the same wells.
  • Determine if the observations could be supported by quantitative analysis, and if so, see how much longer FARR™ runtimes were on average.
View Complete Study
Table 1
Table 1