An Artificial Lift Optimization Tool Developed for the Greater Burgan Field

Abstract An Artificial Lift Optimization Tool has been developed in house by the Field Development team of South and East Kuwait Group of Kuwait Oil Company. The tool evaluates pump performance and identifies optimization opportunities quickly providing options to increase production and enhance pump life. Additionally, the tool identifies groups of wells with atypical conditions that will make them candidates for remedial actions such as well intervention work for pump upsize and increase well deliverability. The Artificial Lift Optimization tool is in the form of an Excel based workbook created with advance functions and macros using well-known oilfield equations for well performance analysis under various conditions. The tool is automated and compares measured information with design parameters through which it highlights two important pump operating conditions; 1) Wells with pumps performing out of the desired design parameters, and 2) Wells with opportunities to increase oil production based on well-reservoir potential. The first condition allows engineers to improve pump's runlife and associated costs, while the second provides options to maximize oil production. The AL Optimization Tool creates quick and easy to review well lists based on these two conditions for further analysis, reducing considerable time and efforts required otherwise for a similar exercise done conventionally. Additionally, a user-friendly interface allows the user review individually any selected well and identify in a glance pump performance and optimization opportunity. The tool is successfully being used since 2017 by the Field Development South and East Kuwait team for routine integrated well-by-well review and AL Optimization meetings with other stakeholder teams. Considerable incremental oil production has been added to the asset with quick gains identified from the AL Optimization Tool. The ESP pump life has been greatly benefited after troubleshooting many pumps to operate in the design operating range. The Artificial Lift Optimization Tool is a customized automated tool developed for managing the performance of Artificial Lifts wells installed in the Greater Burgan field of Kuwait. It gathers relevant production and reservoir related information from multiple data repositories to evaluate pump and well performance enabling quick optimization opportunities. Over 1000 wells operating with AL in Burgan field can be grouped quickly in different categories based on pump operating conditions for detailed analysis selectively by respective stakeholder. The tool has provided to FD team considerable ease in performing the AL optimization task efficiently and quickly. Development efforts for further automation and escalation to other areas of KOC are ongoing.