Effect of pump frequency and wellhead pressure on oil production of ESP in Rmelan oil field

Abstract

In this paper. a case study for evaluating the current conditions and the performance optimization of the electrical submersible pump (ESP) for six oil wells in the Rmelan oil field. This paper presents a sensitivity analysis conducted by Nodal Analysis (Using PIPESIM Software) on the pump frequency and wellhead pressure.

The outflow tubing performance and inflow performance relationship were generated and plotted for each well. The outflow and inflow curves are investigated, indicating problems in some wells (W-12R, W-21KH, and W-21SH). The results of this study show that we can increase the flow rate by optimizing the ESP performance by decreasing the wellhead pressure to 71.58 psi and raising the frequency to a specific value of about 65 Hz based on the pump capacity. Increasing the frequency from 55 to 65 Hz resulted in increasing the production from 634 to 1092 bb//day for W-12R, from 1928 to 2806 bbl/day for W-21KH, and from 1722 to 2279 bbl/day for W-21SH.

The results of wellhead pressure sensitivity indicate a scale in the production tubing that must be removed to improve the oil production of these wells.