ARTIFICIAL LIFT

Experience With Metal PCPs in a Cuban Heavy-Oil Field

Progressing-cavity pumps (PCPs) have

proved to be a successful and reliable
artificial-lift system for production of
heavy oil over the past few decades. The
application of PCP technology for pro-
duction of oil wells continues to expand
rapidly because of ongoing advances
in versatility, lift capacity, durability,
and economy. As a result, the appli-
cation envelope for PCP systems has
grown substantially to the point where
these systems now compete success-
fully in many areas that were tradition-
ally reserved for rod- and electrical-
submersible-pump technologies.

Introduction
PCPs have found numerous applica-
tions in many industries as an efficient
means to transfer, transport, and/or
lift fluids of a diverse nature. The use
of PCPs as an artificial-lift method for
oil wells has gained increasing accep-
tance since their first commercial use in
heavy-oil applications in the 1980s, and
they have now become the preferred lift
method in numerous oilfield develop-
ments worldwide.
PCP Systems
A typical PCP consists of two basic
components: the first is called the sta-
tor—it is typically run on the end of the
production-tubing string and remains
This article, written by Assistant Tech-
nology Editor Karen Bybee, contains
highlights of paper SPE 120645, “Field-
Implementation Experience With Metal-
PCP Technology in Cuban Heavy-Oil
Fields,” by E. Guerra, SPE, and A.
Sanchez, SPE, Sherritt International Oil
and Gas, and C. Matthews, SPE, C-FER
Technologies, originally prepared for the
2009 SPE Production and Operations
Symposium, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,
4–8 April. The paper has not been
peer reviewed.
Fig. 1—Metal pump being bench tested.
stationary during operation; the second
is called the rotor—it is run on the end
of a sucker-rod string and rotates within
the fixed stator when in operation. The
elongated steel rotor is machined with
a circular cross section and a uniform
helix with a prescribed eccentricity
and pitch length. Rotors are normally
chrome coated to reduce friction and
improve wear resistance in service. The
stator cavity takes the form of a double
internal helix with a pitch length that
is double that of the rotor—with the
rotor installed, this configuration cre-
ates two series of parallel cavities within
the pump that are filled by produced
fluid. As the rotor spins within the sta-
tor through the application of torque
to the rod string at surface, wellbore
fluid is drawn into the pump and is
displaced from the intake through the
cavities along the stator to the discharge
where it exits at high pressure into the
production-tubing string.
In conventional PCPs, the stator inte-
rior is made of a synthetic elastomer
compound that facilitates an interfer-
ence fit between the rotor and stator to
develop a pressure seal between adja-
cent cavities within the pump. In gen-
eral, the differential-pressure rating of a
PCP increases with the number of cavi-
ties or seal lines. For a particular pump
design, the rotor/stator-interference fit,
elastomer properties, and viscosity of
the produced fluid also have a strong
effect on the overall pressure capac-
ity and operating characteristics of the
pump. Therefore, for each particular
well application, the choice of elasto-

For a limited time, the full-length paper is available free to SPE members at www.spe.org/jpt.

JPT • JULY 2009 51

mer compound and the degree of rotor/
stator interference (initial tightness or
fit) are key factors with respect to the
operating efficiency, performance, and
the effective life span of such PCPs.
In an effort to overcome the limita-
tions imposed by the relatively fast
chemical and/or mechanical degrada-
tion of elastomers in some downhole
applications (e.g., wells with high bot-
tomhole temperatures or high aromat-
ic, CO2, or H2S concentrations), manu-
facturers have been developing various
all-metal-PCP products. The stator of
the all-metal PCPs may be machined
or fabricated in several short sections
that then are stacked together, appro-
priately aligned, and fastened inside an
external metal casing.
In terms of design and functionality,
a major difference between the all-met-
al- and the elastomeric-PCP products is
the lack of any rotor/stator-interference
fit in the metal PCPs. Accordingly, the
sealing capability of the metal pumps is
achieved solely through a tight running
clearance between the rotor and stator
(i.e., tight manufacturing tolerances are
required). Although this fact translates
into much higher slippage (leakage)
rates and reduced efficiencies when
pumping low-viscosity fluids, the metal
PCPs can be very effective when pump-
ing higher-viscosity fluids (e.g., greater
than 100 cp).
Cuban Oil Fields
The Yumuri and Seboruco fields
were first exploited in 1998 and have
achieved cumulative oil production of
approximately 4.9×106 and 3.7×106
m3, respectively, to November 2008.
The reservoirs produce extraheavy oil
with a dead-oil density ranging from 9
to 13°API. The water-cut values for the
producing wells in these fields current-
ly average 36 and 11%, respectively.
These offshore reservoirs are character-
ized by the complex fold thrust belt
located along Cuba’s northern coast
that has trapped large volumes of heavy
oil in naturally fractured carbonate res-
ervoirs at a top formation depth of
approximately 1500 m true vertical
depth. The heavy oil produced from
the Yumuri and Seboruco reservoirs is
sour and typically may contain quanti-
ties of up to 5 mol% hydrogen sulfide
and 10 mol% carbon dioxide The wells
in these fields produce at an average
gas/oil ratio of 28 and 81 std m3/std m3,
respectively, as of November 2008.
JPT • JULY 2009
PCP-System Installations
Conventional PCPs first were installed
in Cuba in 2001, with their use in the
Yumuri and Seboruco fields starting in
2002. Almost all of the wells (97%) in
these two reservoirs now require some
type of artificial lift, with 91% of the
wells currently produced by PCP sys-
tems. In July 2005, the first two metal
PCPs were installed in the YU-209
and SEB 103 wells. Since then, a total
of 10 metal-PCP units have been run
and operated successfully in selected
Yumuri and Seboruco wells.
The typical installation and operat-
ing scheme for the PCP systems can be
described by the following.
• Run the PCP on a 114.3-mm tub-
ing string to a setting depth ranging
from 700 to 1300 m measured depth.
• Install 25.4- or 31.8-mm American
Petroleum Institute sucker rods, 75-hp
motors, and variable-frequency-drive
(VFD)-equipped drive heads with a 4:1
belt ratio (belt drives) or 7:18 gear ratio
(gear drives).
• Operate the PCP at speeds ranging
from 100 to 300 rev/min with the VFD
torque limit set at 80% of the maximum
recommended torque specified by the
rod manufacturer.
• Monitor the well operating condi-
tions and pump performance, execut-
ing workovers when the pump fails or
can no longer produce the well effec-
tively because of poor efficiency.
Metal-PCP Design
and Performance
The first two all-metal PCPs were
installed in July 2005. An additional
eight units subsequently have been
run in the Yumuri and Seboruco
fields, along with two units run in the
Varadero field, thus bringing the total
data set available for these products
to 12 pumps. Only the installations
in the Yumuri and Seboruco fields are
discussed in the full-length paper. It is
important to note that nine of the 10
metal PCPs installed in the Yumuri and
Seboruco fields are still in operation
and that the one metal pump that was
pulled had not failed. Therefore, the
data presented in the full-length paper
for the metal PCPs do not represent
failed-pump performance and run-life
statistics, as was the case for the elasto-
meric PCPs.
Metal PCPs generally have a larger-
diameter but much shorter stators than
their elastomeric counterparts. The
shorter stators are believed to provide
an advantage in terms of reduced bend-
ing stresses and vibration potential in
this application because the pumps
are seated in large casing and typically
within the deviated portion of the hori-
zontal wells. Fig. 1 shows one of the
metal PCPs being bench tested in prep-
aration for installation in a well. This
geometrical arrangement also may be
of relevance when trying to explain the
notably better run-life performance of
the B-E1 vs. the A-E1 elastomer-pump
models. While the three metal PCPs
cover quite a wide displacement range,
they have the same pressure rating of
14.8 MPa. This is quite similar to the
ratings of the elastomeric PCPs, with
the exception of the Model B pump.
While the installation procedures
for the metal PCPs have been almost
identical to those of the conventional
elastomeric PCPs, the additional steps
involved in the startup of the metal
pumps deserve special mention. This
key difference arises from the dem-
onstrated need to “prime” the metal
pumps with viscous fluid to avoid
excessive slippage, which can prevent
the pump from providing sufficient lift
to produce a column of fluid to surface.
Loading of the annulus with a mixture
of heavy crude and lighter oil during
startup of a pump following installation
has proved to be an effective method to
enable the pump to displace the low-
viscosity well-control fluid (e.g., water)
commonly used during workovers.
Conclusions
All-metal PCPs have been successful in
producing extraheavy oil from a num-
ber of extended-reach horizontal wells
in the Yumuri and Seboruco fields in
Cuba. Twelve metal PCPs have been
run since July 2005, with no pump
failures experienced to date. The metal
PCPs have exhibited much longer aver-
age run lives compared to several dif-
ferent conventional-PCP models with
a number of different elastomers. The
increased durability demonstrated by
the metal PCPs translates to significant
savings in terms of production losses.
Unlike the sudden failures typically
experienced by the elastomeric PCPs,
which often lead to an extended wait on
rig time, the metal pumps used in these
fields appear to exhibit a very gradual
decline in performance, which facilitates
more-effective scheduling of service rigs
for pump replacement. JPT
53