A steel rotor turns inside an elastomer stator; cavities travel up the pump and carry the fluid with them.
Also called PCP · PC pump · screw pump · Moineau pump · ВШН
A positive-displacement pump with one moving part. A helical rotor turns inside a stator of the same shape with one more lobe, and the sealed cavities between them move steadily upward. Nothing is thrown, nothing is compressed, and the flow is smooth.
It is the answer to the two things that ruin centrifugal pumps: viscosity and sand. Heavy oil with solids in it is where the method belongs, and it is the highest-efficiency lift there is. Its life is set by the elastomer.
| What | Why it ends the method |
|---|---|
| Heat | The stator is an elastomer and it has a temperature above which it will not last. This is the first limit most PCP installations meet. |
| Light, aromatic crude | Aromatics swell a nitrile stator and the fit is lost. A high water cut protects it; dry light oil does not. |
| Torque and power through the rods | The drive turns the rod string, and rate times depth is what it has to overcome. Deep and fast at the same time is what stops it. |
| Running dry | The elastomer is cooled and lubricated by what it pumps. A pumped-off well destroys a stator in minutes, which is why these installations are the ones that most need a controller. |
| Installed, before any workover | $70–160k |
| Years between change-outs, before this well's own conditions | 1.0–2.0 |
| One change-out | $25–60k |
| Fixed operating cost a year, energy excluded | $10–18k |
| Fraction of the year it is producing | 93% |
| Standard | Covers |
|---|---|
| ISO 15136-1, Downhole equipment — Progressing cavity pump systems for artificial lift, Part 1: Pumps | Progressing-cavity pumps. The 2001 edition is withdrawn and superseded by the 2009 edition, which is what a request should ask for. |
| API Spec 11D1, Packers and Bridge Plugs, 3rd Edition, April 2015 | Packers and bridge plugs |
| API Spec Q1, Specification for Quality Management System Requirements for Manufacturing Organizations for the Petroleum and Natural Gas Industry | The quality system a manufacturer must hold. In a request this is the line that separates a supplier who can be audited from one who cannot. |
| What has to be bought | Who makes it |
|---|---|
| PC pumps Progressing cavity pumps and stators | ChampionXLifting SolutionsNETZSCH Pumps & SystemsNOVOil Lift TechnologyPCMPCM Artificial Lift SolutionsQ2 Artificial Lift Servicesand 3 more who make it |
| PCP drive heads PCP surface drive heads and backspin brakes | ChampionXLifting SolutionsNETZSCH Pumps & SystemsNOVOil Lift TechnologyPCM Artificial Lift SolutionsQ2 Artificial Lift ServicesRedhead Artificial Liftand 3 more who make it |
| Sucker rods Sucker rods, continuous rod, polished rods, couplings | Alberta Oil ToolBlack Gold Pump & SupplyChampionXConfindEndurance Lift SolutionsFiberodHilong GroupJubail Energy Services Company (JESCO)and 15 more who make it |
| Wellheads Wellheads, stuffing boxes, polished-rod hardware | Black Gold Pump & SupplyBOMCO (Baoji Oilfield Machinery, CNPC)Cavins Oil Well ToolsConfindHilong GroupHunting PLCInnovex InternationalJubail Energy Services Company (JESCO)and 16 more who make it · 3 packagers, distributors and services |
Manufacturers are named first; the whole directory, packagers and services included, is on the suppliers page.
United States. A minority method: some Californian heavy oil and some coalbed methane dewatering. The reason it is not more common is that the American heavy-oil fields are hot and steam-flooded, and elastomer stators do not like heat.
Canada. This is the Canadian speciality. Cold heavy oil with sand — Lloydminster, Clearwater, parts of Saskatchewan — is produced deliberately WITH the sand, and a progressing cavity pump is the only thing that will move a slurry of cold viscous oil and sand for years without cutting itself to pieces.
Latin America. Heavy oil with sand, which Latin America has more of than anywhere: the Orinoco Belt, Rubiales and Castilla in Colombia, La Cira, Sacha and Shushufindi in Ecuador, Block 192 in Peru, Chicontepec in Mexico, Carmópolis in Brazil, and the mature Argentine fields at Comodoro Rivadavia and Barrancas.
Middle East. Heavy oil under steam, which the region has more of than its reputation suggests: the Lower Fars oil at Ratqa, Wafra, Mukhaizna and the Marmul polymer flood in Oman. Where the oil is light and the rates high — most of the region — it has nothing to do.
Europe & North Sea. Heavy oil, wherever Europe has it: Captain in the UK North Sea, Schoonebeek in the Netherlands, Rühlermoor in Germany, Gela and Ragusa in Italy, Patos-Marinza in Albania, Ticleni in Romania. Not a light-oil method and not a high-rate one.
Africa. Heavy and waxy crude: Emeraude offshore Congo, the Ezanga permits in Gabon, Heglig and Unity in Sudan, Doba in Chad, Tilenga in Uganda. Where the oil carries sand or wax and the rate is modest, this is what moves it.
Asia-Pacific. Chinese heavy oil and coalbed methane — Shengli, Karamay, Bohai, the Qinshui wells — Mangala in India, Duri in Indonesia, and the Australian coal measures, Walloon and Permian, where dewatering a coal well is exactly what a PC pump is for.
Caspian & Central Asia. The heavy and the viscous: North Buzachi and Kalamkas on the Kazakh shelf, shallow oil under steam, and the old Balakhany-Sabunchi-Ramany field in Azerbaijan, worked since the 1870s.
No supplier in Caspian & Central Asia for pc pumps or pcp drive heads; that comes from outside the region.
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