Analyses of Electric Submersible Progressive Cavity Pumps for Production of Heavy Oil Reservoir in the Niger Delta

A new artificial lift pump technology has emerged to increase the production of heavy oil in order to meet up high global demand for energy. The technology is a hybrid of two principal artificial lift pumps for lifting crudes. The hybrid called electric submersible progressive cavity pumps integrates the applicability and usefulness of electric submersible pump and progressive cavity pump. This gives it enhanced performance and more adaptability to varied reservoir conditions. This technology has the advantages of sample technology and management convenience. Electric submersible progressive cavity pump (ESPCP) is suitable for the viscous crude containing sand and high gas oil ratio oil extraction. In this paper, developing history of ESPCP is introduced and the structure and principle are analyzed. The advantages of ESPCP are compared with other oil extraction technology. In addition, the technical applicability of this new technology in the Niger Delta heavy oil fields and economic evaluation of the ESPCP were evaluated. The result of this research work showed that ESPCP showed better performance when compared with ESP and PCP making it a choice pumping system to replace the traditional gas lift predominant in the Niger Delta artificial lift operations.