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   “Novomet” trademark is well known throughout Russia, CIS countries, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Today, “Novomet” means a modern engineering plant “Novomet-Perm” servicing company “Novomet-Service”, and research units, including the well-known Moscow experimental design office “Connas”. The headquarters and main production facilities located in Perm, while the company’s service centers operate in Western Siberia, Orenburg region, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Strategically the company is focusing on the development of the servicing arm and on the development and manufacture of new solutions for the oil industry – for Novomet, these industries are closely linked.

   Currently “Novomet-Service” is one of the leaders of domestic servicing segment in ESP field. The division is the umbrella body for seven ESP service centers which currently serve more than 4,300 wells. “Novomet” service centers offer a full service for ESP-equipped wells – from choosing the equipment for the wells and to the maintenance and capital repair work for all ESP units. Clearly, the “Novomet” approach to ESP servicing means providing a comprehensive solution even to the most complex tasks set by the customer, be it a production boost on difficult well stock, switching the stock to mechanized production, or production optimization.

   For such challenges, the solution largely means introducing new, innovative equipment. A typical example is the company’s work on the maintenance of wells run by Gazpromneft-Noyabrskneftegaz. While working on the project, “Novomet” introduced some 20 types of solution (see Table). Rough estimates indicate that over 50 percent of the well stock serviced by “Novomet- Noyabrsk” uses equipment with innovative units. Much of these units were designed for specific tasks of the customer for solving specific problems identified on the stock (such as resolving the issue of submersible equipment clogging, improving the wear resistance of pumps and gas separators, developing more efficient gas utilization equipment, increasing energy performance of upstream equipment. Such work has yielded results; innovative equipment contributed to increased ESP production rate, which, in turn, means that the company delivers more than it has promised (see Graphic).

   The same approach applies to other projects – to meet the challenges presented by the customer we use new, “targeted” solutions. The latest of these solutions are the energy-efficient compact equipment of 2A and 3 sizes, as well as bypass systems and systems for dual pumping.

   Of late the clients are most keen on the issues linked to operation of energy-efficient equipment. “Novomet-service” has already installed 127 such units, according to the data available on the end of Q1 2012. For a number of wells with energy-efficient units the company organized a comparative measurement of energy consumption before and during the operation of these units. All tests results indicate a significant drop of power consumption during operation of “Novomet”-produced energy-efficient units (by 20-40 percent). At the same time the units show significant levels of mean time to failure (656 days as of 01 Apr. 2012). All in all, the equipment has successfully solved the presented challenge of reducing energy consumption while maintaining high reliability levels.
Another important niche in this segment is the development of the equipment for severe environments, such as development of submersible equipment for wells with high hydrogen sulfide content. The challenge posed by the customer (“Gazprom dobycha Orenburg”) was to develop the equipment usable in the environments with up to 6 percent volume of hydrogen sulfide in the gas phase. In turn, the customer had to introduce mechanized production at the Orenburg gas condensate field. customer experience with installing other equipments was negative, in this environment the equipment was failing after less than a month’s work. The key challenge here was the low resistance of downhole equipment to a specific type of corrosion – sulfide stress-corrosion cracking (SSCC). The solution required a scrutinous search of materials for manufacturing of ESP components with the required strength properties and with due account for hardness restrictions in the SSCC environment. The resulting particular unit has successfully worked at the Orenburg field for 360 days and was raised for test examination while still in a working condition. Lab studies showed no corrosion damage of the unit and its details and no signs of the SSCC. The results of this experiment were deemed successful, the ESP continued its operation at the field. Detailed results of the operation within this project presented in a joint publication [1].

   The “Novomet” approach to ESP servicing focuses on the development and implementation of new solutions used as a tool for resolving the customer problems. We believe that this approach ensures our competitive edge in today’s conditions and will do so in the future.

1. B. Minlikaev, A. Mokshaev, F. Khafizov, A. Elizarov, A. Rabinovich, N. Bezmaternykh, “The experience of operation of electric pumps on oil&gas fields with high content of hydrogen sulfide” // “Oil Industry”, No.11, 2011

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