SPE-197339-MS

Moving to an Autonomous Artificial Lift Concept through Automatic ESP

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Restart

Ahmed Khalaf, Bruce Norman, and Saud Alquwizani, Saudi Aramco; Hussain Almalki, Al-khorayef Petroleum
Company; Meshal Ergesous, BHGE; Mohammed AlSowaier, Schlumberger

Copyright 2019, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, 11-14 November 2019.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
of the paper have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect
any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written
consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may
not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

Abstract
Electrical submersible pump (ESP) trips and unplanned shutdowns can be a major operational challenge
for many oil fields. In most of these ESP trips, the ESP can be returned back to production after conducting
proper troubleshooting at surface and without any downhole intervention. The process of manually
restarting tripped ESPs can be a complex and costly operation, especially in an offshore environment.
Alternatively, automatic ESP restart can offer great advantages by reducing the ESP downtime.
Many of the variable speed drives (VSDs) available in the market offer an auto restart feature that allows
the ESP to be restarted automatically without human intervention. This paper presents the concept and the
application of this technique. The activation of ESP auto restart requires considerable technical review of
the different trip causes and the proper restart methodology for each. Auto restart of each trip type has to be
programed differently to prevent possible harm to the ESP. Specific engineering measures and procedures
shall be put in place to ensure personnel and equipment safety.
In this paper, some statistical tools for ESP trips and restarts are presented to measure the success of auto
restart, its effectiveness, and its limitations. The obtained results from the ESP auto-restart technique show
it to be both practical and beneficial; it can significantly reduce the time to put the ESP back in operation
resulting in production advancement. In addition, continuous data collection and assessment of auto-restart
events play an important factor in ensuring that auto-restart settings are properly applied and adjusted for
each type of variable speed drive installed in the field. Finally, the paper provides several recommendations
with suggested ways to improve the functionality of this feature.
The technique introduced in this paper can bring artificially lifted fields closer to an autonomous and
intelligent concept of operations. The presented model can serve as a good benchmarking tool for future
implementation of artificial lift automation.

Introduction
Electrical submersible pumps (ESPs) are a widely deployed form of artificial lift in the oil industry. While
ESPs provide many advantages over other types of artificial lift, they can suffer from recurrent ESP trips and
unplanned shutdowns. ESP trips can take place as a result of many reasons including surface and subsurface
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problems, and downhole flow instability or power fluctuations. In most of these ESP trips, the ESP can be
returned back to production after conducting proper troubleshooting at surface and without any downhole
intervention. In some areas, the process of manually restarting tripped ESPs can be nonetheless a complex
and costly operation due to weather and logistical constrains.
Many of the variable speed drives (VSDs) available in the market offer an auto-restart feature that allows
the ESP to be restarted automatically without human intervention. The activation of ESP auto restart requires

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considerable technical review of different trip causes and the proper restart methodology for each. Auto
restart of each trip type has to be programed differently to prevent possible harm to the downhole ESP. In
addition, specific engineering measures and procedures have to be put in place to ensure the personnel and
equipment safety. This report also presents some statistical analysis to measure the success of auto restart, its
effectiveness, and its limitations. Finally, several recommendations with ways to improve the functionality
are presented in the paper.

Auto Restart Function Objective

Automatic restart can be described as a sequence of programmable commands that will allow restarting
the ESP after a trip due to exceeding the ESP trip predefined set points. These set of commands are user
defined conditions and will allow continues productivity and operation with minimal human interference.
The ESP auto-restart function aims to minimize the cycle time since the ESP tripped until putting the well
back on production. It will allow the VSD to start without human intervention based on a studied criterion.
This function should provide autonomous ESP control through restarting the ESP by itself following trips
caused by abnormal conditions due to power supply, production flowline network, production instability,
etc. It should ensure maintaining target production compliance by minimizing the ESP outage. The auto-
restart feature could be programed to lockout after a certain predefined number of similar re-occurring trips.
Therefore, the ESP availability key performance indicator (KPI) is expected to be improved by minimizing
the tripped ESP restart time.

Auto Restart Function Criterion

Since every individual field has its own characteristics and environment in any operating company, the
ESP auto restart should be planned jointly between the proponent and the ESP services provider. This is to
address all potential concerns and ensure success of the auto-restart performance. It could be done through
regular meetings to set a program to decide when to auto restart the ESP based on the trip alarm and how
long the recommended restart time should be for each trip alarm.
The auto-restart mechanism could be enabled in all VSDs to restart the ESP trips due to underload,
overload, Intake and discharge pressure anomalies, high motor winding temperature, emergency shutdown
(ESD) system problems, and power failure shutdown. Unfortunately, ESP trips attributed to VSD
component problems cannot be considered as it requires physical presence of the operator company field
crew and vendors representatives for troubleshooting due to power failure within the VSD.
The alarms low intake pressure, high discharge pressure, high motor temperature, motor over load (OL)
and motor under load (UL) could be caused by momentary changes or abnormal conditions. These changes
could be in downhole conditions, such as changes in fluid density or inflow control valves (ICVs) settings.
It could also occur due to sudden production interruption at surface like closure or restriction of wellhead
(WH) valves, surface safety valve (SSV) or subsurface safety valve (SSSV). For many cases, the abnormal
condition causing the trip has a temporary effect and will dissipate shortly after the trip, except for the cases
requiring human intervention like opening closed valves. Therefore, the restart time should be evaluated
based on this fact. For ESP trips caused by motor overheat, enough time to restart the tripped ESP should
be allowed to cool down the motor winding temperature prior to the auto restart.
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Each trip scenario has to be reviewed to identify the appropriate trips set points, auto-restart timing and
the number of allowed auto restart prior to lockout. Tabulated below is an example of some trips with
enabled auto-restart feature with the programed parameters for the auto restart.

Table 1—Example of auto-restart parameters, setting values and restart timing.

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For multiple trips occurred in all wells in the drill site or platform due to power supply or ESD problems,
staggered start should be enabled in a certain mechanism, in numeric order for example, to avoid starting
several ESPs at the same time. The start-up of several ESPs at once may result in high inrush current and
excessive load on the power supply network. Enabling the auto-restart function will require updating the
operation instruction manuals or procedures pertaining to ESP activities. This is to ensure capturing all
required adjustments in these documents.

Auto Restart Performance Measurement:

To ensure continuous improvement of the auto-restart function, it has to be measured continuously to trigger
any area of improvement. Consequently, action items could be assigned by either the operating company or
the ESP service provider to tackle any concern or enhance this feature. This could be done through tracking
all trips in a systematic way to capture all associated data including but not limited to trip date, time, type,
cause, root cause and flagging each trip if it was auto restarted or not. If it was not successfully auto restarted,
a clear explanation of the auto-restart failure should be mentioned with assigning recommended action(s) to
tackle the issue. The table below shows an example of a recommended way to track the ESP trips including
auto-restart data.
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Table 2—Example of ESP trips recommended tracking mechanism.

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Once all trips are captured with the mentioned data, the auto-restart performance could be determined
by counting the successfully restarted ESPs following a trip and dividing the value on the total number
of tripped ESPs with enabled auto-restart function at their VSDs. The auto-restart performance could be
illustrated in the formula below:

Auto Restart Function Potential Benefits

By the successful implementation of the ESP auto restart, several outcomes will be realized including the
following:

• Minimizing human intervention: By introducing the ESP auto restart, no manpower is required
from both of the operator company nor the ESP vendors for troubleshooting and restarting the
tripped ESPs and putting the wells on production. This advantage will have its utmost benefit
in large-scale trip incidents like total field power interruption. In these events, all ESPs could be
restarted easily avoiding sending the field crew to restart the ESPs one by one, which is a time
consuming exercise. In addition, this feature can result in safety improvements by minimizing
human exposure to electrical risk
• Decreasing transportation and mobilization of crews with its associated risks

• Reducing the ESP outage duration: The ESP auto restart is programed to put the well back on
production at a predetermined time. Assuming auto restarting the ESP in less than one hour, it will
be a very impressive output compared with the conventional tripped ESP restart time, which could
last for an extended period of time to identify the problem, visit the well and restart the ESP. This
will ensure maximizing the potential availability through advancing the production of the unlocked
potential caused by the ESP trips.
• Enhancing the ESP KPI performance: ESP Restart time KPI is very critical since it affects the ESP
availability, and could interrupt production strategies for the operator company. The date and time
of each ESP trip and restart should be documented precisely to calculate the restart time KPI. The
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restart time is the average time to bring an ESP back on production following a trip, as shown
below:

To visually represent this KPI, the matrix below (also known as the heat map) could be used. Limits

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in this and other similar KPIs could be set based on historical reviews of the data and could be assigned
to be challenging but at the same time relevant and attainable. This way, the operator company can easily
determine the trip magnitude by fields and vendors at a glance. This will help in better tracking and
understanding the overall ESP performance and production efficiency in terms of trips. The legend below
could be customized by using suitable limits to address the operator or vendor targets. In this example, the
matrix shows a qualitative distribution by colors of this KPI for both vendors and fields. To be precise, the
green cells show an excellent performance, yellow is acceptable with a room of improvement, while the red
zone is the area, which requires an immediate corrective action. By applying the ESP auto-restart function,
the ESP restart time KPI matrix should show a clear performance improvement for this KPI matrix by the
significant reduction of the restart time.

Figure 1—Restart Time KPI Heat Map Example

The above matrix could be populated in the same way to construct a new heat map for the ESP auto-restart
performance. This will allow the operator company and the ESP service provider to determine the success of
the auto-restart implementation and identify the areas of improvement to take the proper remedial action(s).

Auto Restart Function Considerations

Several items should be considered during the planning and implementation phases of the ESP auto restart.
Below are the major items to be considered:

Figure 2—Example of VSD auto-restart warning sticker

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• ESP auto-restart warning stickers:

To promote safety, all VSDs in any field, in which the auto-restart function has been enabled,
should be tagged by a warning sticker. The objective of this sticker is to alert all personnel dealing
with these VSDs about the auto-restart function. Therefore, extra caution will be followed by
checking if the VSD will be auto restarted or not. Once the VSD is confirmed not to auto restart,
then working on the VSD could be safely conducted without active power. Picture in the right is a

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sample of the VSD auto-restart warning stickers that could be posted on VSDs with enabled auto
restart function.
• Unreported ESP trips:

• All trips and restarts have to be tracked by the vendor and operator companies. By enabling the
auto-restart function, the tripped ESPs could auto restart in a short time without discovering the trip
and the auto-restart activities by the vendors or the operator company. In other words, it might be
true that the reported ESP auto-restart performance is based on the discovered trips only while the
successful auto-restart cases could be higher. Therefore, downloading the ESP sensor data and the
event data log in regular basis is crucial to ensure capturing all unreported trips and restarts. A more
vigilant review for data downloads and remote monitoring will be required, since some trips might
go unreported or unnoticed. Another option is to capitalize on the intelligent field infrastructure to
monitor all ESPs and discover all trips without missing any. As a result, any single trip or restart
will be captured and effectively reported to enhance tracking of the ESP availability.
• Human Intervention for ESP Auto Restart:
For ESP trips attributed to ESD issues, the VSD will not auto restart with an active alarm. The
trip alarm has to be cleared to enable the ESP auto-restart mode. Therefore, such trips require
physical attendance by representatives from the operator company or the ESP service provider to
clear the alarm and restart the ESP. Once the alarm is cleared, the ESPs could be either restarted
manually or auto restarted by allowing the predetermined time to restart. Similarly, some power dip
events can cause the ESD system or the drill site switchgear to trip. This also will require physical
attendance to restart the ESP. With regard to trips due to power disruption, tripped ESPs could be
auto restarted following power restoration after the programmed time to restart.
Additionally, some VSDs have under voltage shunt trip coils, which prevent auto restart
following power dip trips. These coils are fixed in the input switches and cannot be removed.
Therefore, a retrofit kit package is needed to replace the input switches in these drives. It is worth
mentioning that these coils could be removed easily in some other VSDs without the necessity of
replacing the input switches with retrofit kits. Removing these coils or replacing the input switches
will significantly improve the ESP auto restart performance for trips associated to power dips.
• VSD Settings Standardization:
To ensure that the auto restart function is enabled properly in all the VSDs, the operator company
and the ESP service providers should create a brief guide for the auto restart implementation. The
guide includes clear step-by-step procedures to configure the trips set points for each parameter,
auto-restart timing, VSD lockout, etc. Therefore, all field technicians can refer to this manual easily
to implement the auto restart function without operational concerns.
• Wells with Unstable Performance:
Some wells could have sensitive well performance, which may require close extended
monitoring prior starting the ESP. Therefore, they might need to disable the trips set-point alarms to
avoid tripping while monitoring the well and ESP performance. Therefore, the auto-restart function
may not be advisable on these wells since they most likely will trip after the auto-restart function.
These wells should be identified so that the auto-restart function will not be enabled.
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Figure 3—VSD Breakers

Recommendations
Some potential recommendations should be considered by any operator company and ESP service provider
willing to enable the ESP auto-restart function. These recommendations should enhance the ESP auto restart
and could be summarized as follows:

• Arrange regular meetings or a communication protocol between the operator company and the ESP
service provider to review and evaluate the auto-restart performance and success.
• Download the ESP sensor data and events log to capture all trips and restart.

• Continue reporting all auto-restart events clearly in the vendor activities reporting.

• Investigate all trips events, which did not auto restart and act promptly to identify the reasons for
not functioning properly to rectify the problem.
• Update operation instruction manuals and procedure to capture the implementation of auto restart.

• Ensure carrying the auto-restart guide or manual to be used as a reference whenever needed.

• Check the warning stickers condition during drill site visits and report unclear or missing ones.

• Remove the under voltage trip coils and replace input switches with the retrofit kit package, for
VSDs with under voltage shunt trip coils, which prevent the auto-restart function.
• Ensure enabling staggered restart for trips due to power disruption or ESD problem incidents
occurred in all ESPs in a single drill site or platform in a certain mechanism, in numeric order for
example. This is to avoid starting several ESPs simultaneously, which may result in excessive load
on the power supply network at the same time.
• Allow enough auto-restart time for ESPs tripped with high motor temperature alarm. This is to
enable cooling down the motor prior the restart.
• Assign VSD lockout logic by assigning a realistic maximum number of auto restart after a repetitive
trip in the same well. This is to allow investigating the problem of these repetitive trips prior
restarting these ESPs. As a result, the number of ESP trips will be controlled and will prevent ESP
possible failure due to these repetitive trips.

Summary and Conclusion

ESP auto restart function could drastically improve the ESP availability KPIs. This is done by reducing
the outage duration significantly and hence ensuring well performance enhancement without interrupting
the production strategies. The ESP auto restart technique can bring artificially lifted fields closer to an
autonomous and intelligent concept of operations. Also, it can serve as a good benchmarking tool for future
implementation of artificial lift automation.
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Nomenclature
ESP = Electrical Submersible Pump
VSD = Variable Speed Drive
KPI = Key Performance Indicator
ESD = Emergency Shutdown
Pi = Intake Pressure

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Pd = Discharge Pressure
Tm = Motor Winding Temperature
Ti = Intake Temperature
UL = Under Load
OL = Over Load
PSI = Pound per Square Inch
NP = Name Plate
I = Motor Current
WH = Wellhead
SSV = Surface Safety Valve
SSSV = Subsurface Safety Valve

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