Field Operations Strategy for Installing Beam Pumping Units at 660 Wells in Just six Months

Abstract

Project deliverables included gravel foundation preparation, concrete foundation installation, equipment reception and installation of conventional beam pumping units at 660 production wells in a remote field in Kuwait with a deadline of six months from equipment arrival. Equipment shipments schedules were sequential and therefore an execution strategy was required to successfully meet the project deadline. This paper describes the field operations strategy devised and adopted to successfully meet the deadline. A temporary operations base was set up at the remote field for coordination, equipment reception, inspection, consolidation, pre-assembly and dispatches. Operations were divided into six parallel processes as follows: Equipment logisticsGravel foundation preparationsConcrete foundation installationsUnit Pre-assemblyPre-assembled units dispatchesFinal unit installations Daily output targets were set for each process prior to the commencement of operations. Heavy machinery, manpower and tooling requirements were defined for each process to meet the daily output targets. Progress was monitored daily and subsequently resources were scheduled and utilized to achieve the daily output targets. Setting up of a temporary operations base at the remote field along with daily coordination of resources resulted in reducing equipment’s offloading, transportation and installation cycle times, which led to increased operational efficiency and reduced logistics and operations costs. Division of operations into parallel processes helped in tracking the progress of each operation individually, thereby providing over all control in management of operations. By pre-assembling the beam pumping units at the operations base before dispatching the individual unit, installation time was reduced by 50% when compared to a typical beam pumping unit installation. Daily output target setting helped in defining the resources required to meet these targets. As the operations progressed, daily monitoring of all processes resulted in identifying opportunities to improvise operations and subsequently the daily targets were revised to increase output for each process without exceeding the resources which resulted in time and cost savings. Adopting this execution strategy concluded in successful and efficient completion of the project deliverables as follows:Gravel foundation preparations were completed in 133 work daysConcrete foundation installations were completed in 121 work daysBeam pumping unit installations were completed in 103 work days This field operations strategy for installing conventional beam pumping units at 660 production wells within six months can be considered as a reference for successfully and efficiently completing future large-scale beam pumping unit installation projects at remote locations in a limited time frame.