Intelligent artificial lift technology is increasingly being used in Belayim Marine Field to enhance the value of maturing assets and new development wells. Wells equipped with electric submersible pumps (ESPs) are particularly suited to this blend of old and new. For years, the performance of ESPs has been monitored and controlled from the surface to prevent early pump failure by adjusting the frequency of the signal sent to the pump's variable speed drive (VSD) motor controller. This adjustment has also been used to avoid under-loading an ESP and increase production volume. To find this optimal operating range, real-time data and modeling are used to design the pump to fit the specific requirement of each well.Most recently, Belayim Petroleum has taken the concept a step further by deploying intelligent artificial lift in combination with stimulation technology aimed at reservoir management to help restore production from the 113-M-97-H well in Belayim Marine field, which is located in the central part of the Gulf of Suez, along the coast of the Sinai Peninsula. This new development well was drilled horizontally with maximum angle of 88°, and a 211 m. horizontal open-hole section was completed with 3.5-in. excluder screens. The well once achieved 22-hour good recovery at 550 BOPD. Then the production declined and the well was shut in due to low amperage, followed by no recovery caused by severe loss of circulation, which created a filter cake plugging the near wellbore pores. Complex stimulation treatment and flow, and well geometry and completion, as well as the offshore environment have complicated workover operations on this depleted reservoir and unproductive well issues. With intelligent ESP, a cost-effective stimulation was successfully deployed and enabled to evaluate production streaming data, such as pump intake pressure and temperature during the treatment across the horizontal section.Already equipped with in-well electric power cables, protectors, and multi-sensors, as well as a power controller VSD at the surface, this intelligent ESP system also enabled clean-out process at different production rates. Once clean reservoir fluids were observed during the flowing period, the ESP was stopped for a pressure build-up. A post-stimulation well test was performed to evaluate the treatment's effectiveness before running the new completion, hence minimizing intervention time to restore production promptly, reducing rig time, and achieving optimum completion design for long-term productivity of the well.

The application of continuous-flow gas lift systems have been operating for over 40 years in Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company (GUPCO) offshore Gulf of Suez. Like any artificial lift method, it is to improve the productivity whilst ensuring the most effective use of the existing reserves. Continuous gas lift operations is favorable for these fields because of the flexibility in its production rates, ability to handle corrosive fluids, suitable for high temperature and high gas oil ratio wells, and compatibility with sand production. Some other real challenges facing the Gulf of Suez assets management besides keeping up production and maximizing reserves from mature fields are the ageing production facilities, and limited testing and data acquisition infrastructure.As more and more wells are completed with gas lift, the task of gas lift monitoring becomes more time consuming.An important part of the gas lift optimization process is the effective gathering of live field data in order to establish the performance of the field and its individual well. A source of this information so far is a bunch of well files placed in the field and or head quarter offices. Because of inadequate infrastructure for an optimization and monitoring schedule, it is required to initiate a system with today's real-time data acquisition and data transmission technology, which provide an opportunity to implement the real-time production optimization effectively and remotely by means of satellite and web interface.A pilot platform was selected to prove the concept of real-time production optimization. It is located in El-Morgan offshore field, approximately 160 miles in the south Gulf of Suez. The field consists of four (4) major platform complexes and 17 satellite platforms with over 80 current producers and around 50 injectors. Despite on-going operational difficulties and complexities, waterflood operations in this field indicate a successful exploitation of potential reserves. The field's cumulative production to date is 51% of its predicated Stock Tank Oil Initially in Place (STOIIP). Manual data gathering exercise is being implemented as a remedial solution to validate definitive benefits from the gas lift optimization process. The pilot began with a feasibility study for most reliable, safe and secured data acquisition and data transmission deployment to overcome the daily struggle of gathering sufficient, current and reliable data, and to better understand the field production potential. The strategy is further defined into several steps from efficiently monitor well behavior on a well by well basis, achieve full monitoring coverage for the field, provide quick response to well down-time, provide thorough review and analysis on well performance, hence give more time to gas lift engineers to look for other optimization opportunities around the field.

TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax +1-972-952-9435. AbstractThe principal considerations in designing a permanent gauge system are the accuracy, resolution and stability of the acquired data (pressure, temperature, flow) and the reliability with which this data can be transmitted to the end user. Cable to Surface gauges combined with the ISU, or ISP Unit can immediately satisfy metrological requirements for pressure and temperature data acquisition in real-time.Set against the industry demand, especially during the economic downturn, the objective of permanent downhole monitoring gauges with Cable to Surface (CTS) technology deployment is to optimize production and boost average recovery rates using a cost effective fit for purpose real-time monitoring system that involves technology (tools), people and process.The B-Field was discovered in 1991 by exploration well B-01. Twelve wells have been drilled since then and started producing oil in 1994 from one vertical well and the rest are horizontal wells. There is no injection well in this field. Based on a simulation study for an optimum infill drilling case, oil rate is predicted to increase by three folds in 2009, with a recovery factor is estimated to reach 17.2 % of its original oil in place by year 2026. This paper will describe applications and technical contribution of permanent downhole monitoring gauges using Cable to Surface technology digitally enabled with built-in sensors and linked to personnel with diagnostic and remediation skills, resulted pro-active measures and actions to improve equipment run life and well performance, as well as assist in reservoir management decision making.Examples include the use, methods and two field cases of the technology and system application in BM-17 progressive cavity pump (PCP) and BM-18 beam pump wells. Observation to the rest of the wells in this field is continuously performed to gain values from real-time optimization by reducing operating cost and restoring oil production.

Permanent Downhole Gauges (PDG) can play great roles in production optimization as well as reservoir continuous monitoring and management. Data obtained from these gauges or sensors can give useful information to applications, including but not limited to monitoring artificial lift performance, pressure monitoring, transient well testing, and evaluation of well performance. Reservoir continuous monitoring, production losses mitigation, pump optimization and benefits from detection or prevention to early failure have been considered overcoming short-term concerns about cost containment during economic downturn. This paper presents case studies based on a pilot project deployed by Agiba Petroleum Company and Schlumberger in Aghar-4 field, Western Desert, Egypt. This field consists of three producers that are equipped with permanent downhole gauge and integrated real time system connecting bottom hole sensor technology to some essential surface measurement capability. Aghar-4 is a promising heavy oil field with a total of 13 wells drilled and being produced by sucker rod pumping to the date of the study. Aghar 4-1 was commissioned in January 2009 and is the first well in the Middle East operating with the intelligent downhole monitoring system application. This success story in Aghar 4-1 implied the installation of two more systems in Aghar 4-4 and Aghar 4-12. Later in October 2009, Aghar 4-12 made its history as the first world sucker rod well integrating downhole sensor, surface controller, and real time PC web-based satellite transmitted interface monitoring system. Artificial lift downhole equipment failures often occur within a relatively short period causing reduced or deferred production. Continuous real time monitoring of the environment in and around pumps will significantly improve production through a proactive surveillance and optimization of artificial lift operations.

With the current economic downturn, operators, as well as service providers, are aiming at the best operational and financial performance. This had a significant impact on introducing the concept of minimizing cost in conjunction with production optimization. In this paper we are going to demonstrate that the integration between the advanced technologies, reservoir and operations experts, and the assistance of well modeling software, under the umbrella of real-time operations surveillance, yields superior results in terms of; excellent operations support, troubleshooting, problem identification, and remedial corrective actions. The value of this integration is the achievement of seamless on-site well modeling in real-time. Real-time operations surveillance provides a connection between the field and experts in both companies, leading to proactive well and formation management, therefore, identifying completion and workover problems, suggesting the solutions, implementing, and following up these solutions exhibiting flawless operations. A case study is presented to quantify the value of applying real-time operations surveillance. The case study is an artificially lifted well producing from tow different formations commingled using an ESP equipped with permanent downhole pressure and temperature gauge, and real-time monitoring equipment were installed for data transmission to field office, head quarters, and operations technical support center. Following the standard procedures after the ESP start-up performing initial system diagnosis, a surveillance engineer identified system underperformance that, afterwards, has been proven that formation damage took place while killing the well for workover. After analyzing the surface fluid samples, building digital well models, and performing nodal analysis, we could detect which formation is plugged and suggested the remedial well treatment needed. The actual result was boosting the production from 150 BPD to 550 BPD after the workover, while the average rate before the workover was 350 BPD, which is almost 60% production improvement Introduction Real time surveillance has been a fast emerging technology over the past decade. In order to have better understanding of the issue and its influence in our industry a simple internet based search followed by simple statistical analysis was performed. Referring to the SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) as a highly recognized association by the industry, we have utilized the OnePetro which is a multi-society technical library that features numerous technical documents from 9 E&P related organizations, moreover, it provides search access to papers from eight other industry organizations, i.e. American Petroleum Institute, American Rock Mechanics Association, American Society of Safety Engineers, NACE International, Offshore Technology Conference, Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts, Society of Underwater Technology, and World Petroleum Congress. In other words, we have chosen one of the widest e-library to be the reference for our statistical analysis.