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Whenever an oil well is unable to lift crude oil to the ground autonomously like a tired old man, engineers activate artificial lift technology. Gas lifting is one of the most commonly used methods. Does it count as artificial lift technology? The answer is very clear: yes, gas lifting is not only an artificial lift, but also an efficient technical means recognized by the petroleum industry.

Imagine that an oil mine that has been mined for many years is like a well that is about to dry up. When it cannot “carry” crude oil from the depths of the ground to the ground on its own, engineers will activate artificial lift technology to help. This kind of technology is not magic, but the crystallization of human wisdom-it uses external equipment to “pump up” the oil well and let the crude oil flow obediently. Today, let's take a look at how artificial lift works step by step.

Artificial lift oil recovery method is a method of artificially replenishing energy to the bottom of an oil well and lifting oil from the reservoir to the wellhead. It is a key technical link in oil recovery engineering. After decades of development, a number of lifting technologies such as oil pumps, screw pumps, electric submersible pumps, and air lifts have been formed to meet the needs of conventional oil recovery, but at the same time there are also a series of problems such as low efficiency, high energy consumption, and short pump inspection cycles. In recent years, the field of unconventional oil and gas extraction has been very lively, and the difficulty of extracting oil and gas reservoirs has also increased. In the face of increasingly complex oil well lifting conditions and rising oil production costs, efficient and low-cost artificial lift technology has also become the research focus of major oil service companies.

To understand the reasons for the size difference, we must understand the working principle of the gas lift. As the mainstream artificial lifting method, the core of gas lifting is to reduce the density of crude oil by injecting high-pressure gas into the oil well. However, the “thrust” required for different oil wells is very different: Shallow wells may only require small compressors, while ultra-deep wells require truck-like giant equipment. The gas lifting device used in a shallow oilfield in Karamay, Xinjiang, covers an area of less than 10 square meters; In the deep-sea oilfield in Bohai Bay, the volume of similar equipment is comparable to that of a container-the size difference is directly due to the precise adaptation of manual lifting to well conditions.

Artificial lifting technology is an indispensable means in oilfield development. It refers to the system engineering of supplementing the lack of natural energy in the formation through external equipment to achieve efficient crude oil extraction. As the oilfield enters the mid-to-late development stage, the formation pressure drops, and the natural flow well is gradually unable to maintain production. At this time, manual lifting has become the key to ensure stable production.

Oilfield development has entered the middle and late stages, and it is a common phenomenon for formation energy attenuation to cause oil wells to lose their self-injection capacity. Artificial lift technology drives downhole equipment through external power to establish a continuous flow channel of crude oil from the reservoir to the ground, which has become a key technical means to maintain oil and gas production. Artificial lift technology is essentially a scientific supplement to subsurface energy, which can effectively overcome mining obstacles such as insufficient reservoir pressure and fluid viscous resistance.