Bergey Windpower Case Study

Cleo Springs, Oklahoma

 Oilfield Stripper Well Pumping

Jones #2 is a 2,200 m (7,500 ft) deep combined oil and gas stripper well near Cleo Springs, Oklahoma.  The production from an oil well declines over time as the reservoir is depleted and when they fall below 10 barrels per day they are known as "stripper wells".  There are ~ 400,000 stripper wells in the U.S. and each year over 15,000 are shut-down because they are no longer economic to operate.  The major expense for stripper wells is the electricity or fuel used to run them.  This is referred to as the "lifting costs".

In April 1993, with support from the State of Oklahoma (funded, coincidentally, from US-DOE oil overcharge settlement funds from oil companies), BWC installed four pilot pumping systems on stripper wells for Magic Circle Energy Corporation (MCEC).  The 10 kW system on MCEC's Jones #2 well, shown above, was the first system of its type put in operation.  Normally, stripper wells are operated on timers that run them 4-12 hours per day.  When operating off a wind system instead of the power grid the stripper well operates at a variable stroke rate and it pumps at a lower rate but over more hours per day.  After a year of operation on Jones #2 MCEC concluded that total production was the same as with utility power but lifting costs were reduced by ~ 50%.  They also calculated that the reduced lifting costs would delay the shut-down of the well by 5-8 years, increasing recoverable reserves appreciably.  But, they also concluded that the payback period would be 7-10 years and that independent oil companies would not accept paybacks over 3 years.

Although there were some technical difficulties, such as delivering enough start-up torque to get the 17,000 lb pump string moving, the MCEC project did show that stripper wells could be operated from wind turbines.  Perhaps in the future the costs of small wind systems will come down enough to spark the interests of the independent oil producers.