Looking at a map, the Basilicata region of Italy is located in the “instep” of the boot-shaped country. Basilicata is considered to be the most mountainous region of the country with approximately 47% of its 9,992 sq km (3,858 sq miles) of land being covered by the southern Apennines Mountains. It is here that the country’s largest producing onshore oil fields, the Val d’Agri, are found.

Discovered in 1991 and developed by Eni, Val d’Agri production began in 1996. A 2010 report stated that production in the fields was expected to be a little over 85,000 b/d of crude oil.

The Val d’Agri is comprised of several smaller fields. According to Eni, production from the Monte Alpi, Monte Enoc, and Cerro Falcone fields is fed by 24 production wells and treated at the Viggiano oil center with an oil capacity of 104,000 b/d. Oil produced is carried to Eni’s refinery in Taranto via a 136-km (85-mile) pipeline.

The mountainous terrain surrounding the fields makes getting heavy machinery in and out of the area very difficult. When the time came to replace the electric submersible pumps (ESPs) used in the fields, Eni looked to Houston-based Artificial Lift Co. (ALC) for solutions.

“The issue they have when downhole pumps fail is that it is very difficult to move a rig to location in the mountainous region that is also a nature preserve,” said Alex Kosmala, CEO of ALC. “It can take up to a year to get a rig to location.”

In November 2012 the company announced that it had successfully deployed its Advantage System rigless ESP system. The system uses a lightweight, compact permanent magnet motor and provides full tubing access after slickline retrieval. “There is a long list of benefits to using permanent magnet motors. They are more reliable and have fewer moving parts,” Kosmala said. “Permanent magnet motors can run at full efficiency from 20% of load to 100% of load, so they are more adaptable to changes in well productivity.” The system is compatible with industry-standard surface and downhole hardware and downhole monitoring with all industry-standard ESP gauges. By going rigless, a significant reduction in installation time was seen. “It could take a day or two to get the unit there and a day or two to do the electric submersible pump replacement. So something in the past that has taken a year to just get started can now be done in less than a week,” he said. “If you wait a year to get another ESP, then you’ve lost a year of production. But if you put another one in within a week, then you’ve accelerated your production, in effect, by 51 weeks.”

The mountainous terrain surrounding the fields makes getting heavy machinery in and out of the area very difficult.

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