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Abstract

All of Total E&P Congo’s production comes from offshore wells and the majority of these producers use secondary lift, mainly gas-lift and ESP (Electrical Submersible Pump). The efficiency of ESP and high delta pressure operation means that all new field developments use them along with a number of gas-lift conversions. One disadvantage of using ESP is the need for frequent intervention which, when coupled with a high work over cost and subsequent deferred production, both due to dependence on available work-over vessels in the region, can lead to exceedingly high operating costs. Moving away from this rig dependency towards a lighter operation would mitigate these drawbacks and greatly reduce the operation cost of the ESP systems deployment. Those changes are possible with the Wire Line Retrievable ESP (WR-ESP) technology. An initial work over is to set permanent completion elements. When the WR-ESP is retrieved, the tubing and the ESP power cable stay in place (permanent completion). The WR-ESP technology provides full bore access below ESP, short and light BHA, and uses permanent magnet motor (PMM) to increase the efficiency. Well screening for the pilot installation were done for Total E&P Congo wells. The selected candidate (Field A well) allows a simple and robust completion with little operation complexity. High safety standards are guaranteed during production and also during future well intervention. The use of slick line unit for ESP change-out is the key of this technology due to its flexibility, rapid mob-demobilization, and small operational cost compared to offshore pulling unit or rig. This bold way of deploying ESP is possible due to two main technical innovations:

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/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609-pdb.395.IPTC-17650-MS
2014-01-19
2024-03-19
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http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609-pdb.395.IPTC-17650-MS
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