Intelligent Diagnosis of Rod Pumping Problems

Abstract

Rod-pumping is the most common artificial lift method used to move oil to the surface in low pressure resevoirs. A variety of mechanical problems can occur with this system. The adjustment of the pumping capacity to the reservoir production rate is another source of error compromising pumping efficiency. The need to identify these problems quickly and accurately is essential in attempts to minimize operating costs and maximize production. A dynamometer is attached in general to the polished rod of the pumping unit, and a plot of load vs. position, known as (downhole) dynamometer card (DC), is obtained for the purpose of rod load monitoring. Altough DC is a very important piece of information, other data may be required to support complex decision making about the actual rod-pumping condition. For this purpose, the engineer uses also information about the characteristics of the well, the type of oil being pumped, etc., besides taking into consideration the DC shape, maximum and minimum load values, etc. A new type of neuron is used to built neural nets having powerful numeric and symbolic processing capabilities, besides permiting knowledge to be encoded not only on the wiring of the net, but also on the selection of the types of neurons and synapsis composing the net. This new type of neural nets was used to develop SICAD, a hierarchical neural system whose purpose is the intelligent control of rodpumping. SICAD is composed by two famillies of neural nets specialized, respectively, in pattern recognition (PRN) and expert reasoning (ERN). Different modes of interactions 97 between ERN and PRN define different pumping control strategies.

Selection of EOR/IOR Opportunities Based on Machine Learning

“…In the case of Expert system is mostly used for knowledge representation in the form of IF-THEN rules, where specific Know-How from Experts are used to build schemes that would be automated and used for modeling an Expert reasoning. Some expert system have been developed recently 14,15 , for different disciplines of E&P, which included drilling areas 16,17 , well bore simulation 18,19 , well testing and logging 20,21 , EOR and fluid property predictions 22,23 . It is important to mention that combinations of these different tools are also possible, i.e.…”

A qualitative balance of shape descriptors on dynamometer cards

“…This method is the most common way of artificial elevation [1,2]. It is estimated that 90% of artificial elevation in the world use the system of mechanical pumping [3,4].…”

Comparison of Border Descriptors and Pattern Recognition Techniques Applied to Detection and Diagnose of Faults on Sucker-Rod Pumping System

“…As the fault diagnosis in mechanical pumping system is a recognition process of dynamometric cards references, various studies have been developed based on pattern recognition techniques using neural network or expert systems and have been proposed to improve accuracy and efficiency (Nazi & Lea, 1994) of this kind of diagnosis system Alegre, Morooka & da Rocha, 1993;Barreto et al, 1996;Chacln, 1969;Dickinson & Jennings, 1990;Nazi & Lea, 1994;Rogers et al, 1990;Schirmer & Toutain, 1991;Schnitman et al, 2003;Xu et al, 2006 …”

“…This method is the most common way of artificial elevation (Alegre, Morooka & da Rocha, 1993;Schirmer & Toutain, 1991). It is estimated that 90% of artificial elevation in the world use the system of mechanical pumping (Nazi & Lea, 1994;Tripp, 1989).…”