Artificial lifts system market to increase oil production Volumes

It is estimated that the global market of artificial lift systems, which covers a variety of machines used to optimize oil or gas recovery from a reservoir, is multi-billion dollar industry.

Analysts say that less than a fourth of oil produced from reservoirs flows naturally. The reservoirs which lack sufficient energy to allow the flow of oil, gas and water at desired rates, supplementary recovery methods such as artificial lifts are required.

Not necessarily do all oil-reservoirs require artificial lifts throughout their life – some might need these devices later in their life when their pressure decreases. A majority of all the oil-wells drilled across the world require artificial lifts to recover sufficient or increased volumes of oil as they become old. For many oil-wells, techniques such as injection of gas and water for building pressure support may result in well productivity. But artificial lifts help when reservoir drives do not allow acceptable rates of liquid to flow.

What is driving the global artificial lift systems market?

Artificial lift processes transfer energy or reduce fluid density downhole and decrease the hydrostatic pressure of the wellbore, so that the available energy in the reservoir causes inflow, leading to recovery of increased oil volumes. Because the energy of a reservoir reduces later in the field life, artificial lift systems are generally required with mature oil and gas reservoirs. However, the mature state of hydrocarbon recovery industry, driven by activities in deep waters and areas that require the construction of complex well, have increased the applications of the global artificial lift systems market. The demand is basically high for a process that could lead to high lifting rates for producing oil quickly and at lower costs.

Artificial lift systems prove to be most useful, acquire major share of their revenues and help oil recovery markets generate better returns from difficult international reservoirs.

Types of artificial lift systems in the market:

The most popular artificial lift systems available in the market include electric submersible pumps, gas lifts and rod pumps. In certain places, progressing cavity pumps and hydraulic pumps are also used. Each of these devices is suited to a certain specific operational objective or lifting requirement. However, depending on fluid types, subsurface conditions, well inclination angles, depths, surface facilities and pressure required, a mix of these systems may be used in different situations.

Technologies in the artificial lift market:

The technologies prevalent in the artificial lift systems market are well established. But there are a number of new technologies that continue to play major role in meeting various challenges and solving problems concerned with complex oil reservoirs.

The recent phase of improvement in many of these traditional methodologies have resulted in reduced costs through the use of components capable of resisting hostile conditions, optimizing power usage and improving reliability.

There are many alternative methods of deploying artificial lift systems that can allow profitable returns from uneconomic oilfields or reservoirs. Capabilities of traditional artificial lift systems can also be expanded through the integration of more than one lift methods in the same reservoir or oilfield, for instance combined use of jet pumps or gas lifts with electric submersible pumps and progressing cavity pumps.