World's First Metal PCP SAGD Field Test Shows Promising Artificial-Lift Technology for Heavy-Oil Hot Production: Joslyn Field Case
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Finding a reliable artificial lift pumping system for heavy oil thermal recovery has been a challenge mainly due to the high operating temperatures (>150°C). Available options such as Rod Pumps and Electrical Submersible Pumps (ESP), which are well proven in the industry, are not particularly well suited to thermal production. While Rod Pumps offer high temperature service, they are limited in the flowrate they can deliver. ESPs on the other hand, can handle high volumes of low viscosity fluids, but are still limited in terms of maximum operating temperature. Progressing Cavity Pumps (PCP), with elastomeric stator, is economic to run and have done well in heavy oil cold production. These elastomers are however limited in temperature (<150°C). Through research work conducted by PCM and TOTAL, Metal PCP technology has been developed to meet the high temperature requirement of SAGD and other thermal recovery processes. Three models of the Metal PCP are now available to cover a wide range of flow rates for heavy oil production. This paper presents an update on the Metal PCP development and the results of the world's first SAGD field trial of this type of pump currently on-going in Canada in the Joslyn field. Field performance data are discussed comparing high temperature ESP and metal PCP in actual LP-SAGD conditions. Four SAGD well pairs were initially equipped with high temperature ESP. Another well pair was equipped with metal PCP. This well has been running since mid October 2006 without problems, in spite of low pressure at pump intake, close to steam flashing conditions. Production rate reached 200m3/d of liquid at 340rpm, giving a volumetric efficiency of 53%. Intake temperature is 160°C due to the LP-SAGD condition of the field. However, this pump is rated up to 350°C. This first field trial shows the metal PCP as a promising artificial lift technology for hot production. Following this encouraging trial, a second metal PCP has been installed with success in the same field and more installations were decided eventually. Thus, all ESP initially installed were replaced by PCP and nine wells are producing with Metal PCPs currently.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".