
doi: 10.2118/53123-ms , 10.2523/53123-ms
Abstract Artificial lift using gas is considered the main source of life for most of Gupco's wells. Since employing gas lift technology in 1972, Gupco managed to improve total oil recovery and increase daily production rate in its operations. The conventional procedure for lifting well fluids by injecting compressed gas through gas lift valves using continuous gas flow design has realized significant production benefits over the years. But now due to the changing reservoir conditions, primarily declining reservoir pressure, an innovative approach to gas lift technology must be utilized to conserve available lift gas volumes while avoiding ineffective circulation of gas through the deep operating gas lift valves. Gupco overcame this problem by designing and implementing a system, which uses a combination design of continuous and intermittent gas lift procedures. The results of using these designs are very good, keeping wells on production when often time would be shut-in due to limitations in gas lift capacity. the gain is not only realized from maintaining wells on production, but also through redistribution of the additional volumes of high pressure gas. One of many success stories in Gupco is the case history of Morgan well M-41 where 1000 BOPD gain was realized while saving 1.5 MMSCFD of high pressure gas through the use of fluid operated and Pilo-Port valves rather than continuous injection. This new design is not common in operation around the world, but Gupco has effectively used this technique in improving production performance and is considered an industry leader. This paper will demonstrate all aspects of designing an installation, the advantages and disadvantages of this approach, and the detailed results of Gupco's success story. For this reason, we can now say that no gas is being wasted and we are getting maximum benefit from our gas lift investment.
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