Vane Pump-Another Promising Artificial Lift Form?

Abstract In thermal production well, beam pumping lifting is still the major artificial lift form in spite of its high cost on surface equipments and huge energy consumption. In conventional progressive cavity pump (PCP), the interior stator is made of synthetic elastomer, the steam temperature is too high for it to work. For the lift in high-temperature wells, in a long time, we did not have a good solution that can balance both mechanical efficiency and high temperature resistance. We developed a new lift manner by using vane pump as the down-hole pump to lift oil to the surface. According to the down-hole conditions, we redesigned the structure of vane pump with small radial size and transporting fluids axially. As same as PCP, the vane pump lift system and its rotor is driven by a surface drive head through the rotating rod strings. There is no initial tightness between the rotor and the stator of the vane pump that are all made up of metal elements. It can resist the temperature of 250 °C and be used in high oil-gas ratio well and heavy oil well. The vane pump's flow rate is about 5 to 100 cubic meters per day, and the pressure rating can reach 20MPa. The vane pumps have been deployed in five steam flooding wells. Compared with the beam pumping unit with the similiar liquid-producing capacity, the energy consumption of vane pump is 30 percent lower. Until now, the longest operation time span is 11 mouths, and all pumps are in good condition. Maybe in the near future, vane pump lift system will become another important artificial lift form. In this paper we will discuss the design of vane pump and its artificial lift system, its benefits and case histories in details. Key words: Artificial lift, vane pump, multiple-stage vane pump, thermal production well