Progressive Vortex Pump: A New Artificial Lift Pumped Method

This paper reports the first experience on applying progressive vortex pumping (PVP) as an artificial lift solution in the oil industry. From a conceptual point of view, progressive vortex pumps are rotodynamic devices that elevate fluid mixtures by converting kinetic energy to potential energy, which is a result of an inducing vortex within each pumping stage. The solution proposed in this paper was inspired by pumps used in the automotive industry (Lochman and Bryce 1980; Yu 1995) and adapted for pumping multiphase mixtures from oil-producing reservoirs. The pilot installation of this technology occurred in an onshore field, located northeast of Brazil. There is a brief description about some specificities of the progressive vortex pump (including features of the production scenario, surface and subsurface installations, and the results observed during the first 4 months of operation), which was installed in an unprecedented way in an oil production well. This paper also addresses some relative advantages of PVP over other artificial lift pumping methods, such as electric submersible pumping (ESP). However, overall efficiency needs to be improved when compared to competing methods such as ESP.