Experiences, Innovations and Best Practices of Hydraulic Jet Pump (HJP) Application at Remote and Swampy Brown Field in Sembakung Block, Indonesia

Sembakung field was discovered in 1977 and is located in North East Kalimantan, Indonesia. From the reservoir point of view, hydrocarbon is produced from 32 layers of shallow (ranging 1500 - 3500 ft TVD) TBL sandstone formation, which has discontinuous lenses reservoir characteristic with deltaic depositional environment. This environment caused a significant amount of very fine sand production that may be troublesome for most artificial lift types. The reservoir has initial pressure and temperature of 1249 psig and 180 F, with solution gas drive as the drive mechanism. This causes a sharp decline in reservoir pressure; hence the wells cannot flow naturally for a long time. The crude characteristic is ranging from 36-37API deg. and produces with a typical GOR of 150 – 2,400 scf/stb. Sembakung is located in a remote and swampy area which can only be reached by air and river transportation. As a result, a special rig is required for drilling and workover which will be very costly to mobilize and to operate. Also, the wells must be developed in a cluster system (PAD), making a high inclination in trajectory to reach the target zone. During 30 years of operations, many types of artificial lift trial have been performed, such as electric submersible pump (ESP), rod pump (HPU) and hydraulic jet pump (HJP). Given that TBL sandstone formation has solid problem, rig mobilization and operations are very costly, high deviated well construction, so HJP became the obvious choice. Currently 43 active oil wells in Sembakung are producing with the aid of HJP as artificial lift, contributing 2,200 BOPD productions.