CERRITOS, Calif. – Oct. 21, 2020 – Upwing Energy, an artificial lift technology company, announced today that Project Director David Biddick and Senior Reservoir Engineer Lukas Nader will present a paper at the SPE Virtual Artificial Lift Conference and Exhibition-Americas on November 12. 

The paper, titled “Liquid Removal to Improve Gas Production and Recoverable Reserves in Unconventional Liquid-rich Reservoirs by Subsurface Wet Gas Compression,” describes Upwing’s new high-speed Subsurface Compressor System™ (SCS) and its application and benefits for a number of reservoir types. It discusses the complete process from well analysis, performance projection, deployment, commissioning to operation and presents the results of a first successful field trial of the SCS and its impact on unconventional gas production.

The paper is co-authored by Upwing’s Chief Executive Officer Herman Artinian, Equinor’s Principal Engineer - Shale Oil and Gas Pandurang Kulkarni and Riverside Petroleum’s Chief Operating Officer Bob Van Hoy and Chief Geoscientist Steve Zdan.

Upwing deployed its first full-scale SCS in an unconventional liquid-loaded shale gas well in Indiana during the fourth quarter of last year. The trial results showed a 62 percent increase in gas production and a 50 percent increase in liquid production over its steady-state performance with a rod pump prior to the SCS installation.

To demonstrate the value proposition of downhole compression, Upwing used data from three different reservoirs with unique production challenges to simulate the well performance with and without the SCS:

• Unconventional horizontal fractured shale well - The predominant production challenge in this type of well was the excessive backpressure caused by liquid accumulation in the wellbore and fracture system.
• Conventional, highly productive onshore gas well - The main production challenges were multiphase and friction dominated flow, which causes the well to become hydrodynamically unstable and leads to fluctuating and intermittent production.
• Unconventional Coal Bed Methane (CBM) well - The major challenge in a CBM well is that ultimate gas recovery is controlled by the ability to lower reservoir pressure.

Upwing’s Enhanced Production Simulator™ (EPS) was used to analyze each well’s performance and to evaluate the production enhancement achieved with subsurface compression. The simulation results of all three wells showed a significant increase in gas production, recoverable reserves, natural gas liquids and condensate with the SCS.

The SPE Artificial Lift Conference and Exhibition-Americas brings E&P innovators from major IOCs, NOCs, and independent operators together to exchange ideas to advance technical knowledge in artificial lift applications for unconventional shale developments.