CASABE PROJECT
Customer:
Ecopetrol S.A. is the largest company in the country and the main oil company in Colombia. Due to its size, Ecopetrol S.A. belongs to the group of largest oil companies in the world and it is one of the five main companies in Latin America.
Ecopetrol S.A. carries out both exploration and production activities in hydrocarbon extraction fields in the centre, south, east and north of the country (upstream), and its transport through crude export ports and thousands of kilometres of oil pipelines (midstream) and treatment in refineries for its sale (downstream)
Process description
The Casabe field, located in the Department of Antioquia and town of Yondó Barrancabermeja, is one of the largest oilfields in Colombia. The field is divided into different clusters that supply the progressing cavity and rocker electric submersible pumps that extract the crude for its subsequent transport to the storage tanks. The weather conditions in this area of the country are extreme, with an average temperature of 28° and relative humidity of 90%, and with heavy rain for a good part of the year.
The problem
The natural limitation of any electrical line causes different electrical phenomena or disturbances that can cause serious problems in continuous processes that depend to a large extent on high electricity reliability. The Casabe field, one of the largest in the country, suffers these types of disturbances for different reasons, among which the problems due to voltage dips stand out which occur in medium-voltage lines when a weather phenomenon causes a short-circuit in a line. The line that suffers the short circuit is protected and ceases to function until it can be repaired or the short circuit simply disappears, but the other lines associated to it suffer voltage drops which cause, in the majority of cases, stoppages of the oil wells.
These voltage drops, which in the majority of cases do not exceed 50% of the nominal voltage and rarely exceed 500 ms, cause hours of production stoppage until the process is resumed with full assurances.
The solution
One of the most critical parts of the Casabe field, as regards delayed production that it suffered due the previously explained phenomena, is a cluster that supplies different pumps, each one associated with an oil well, with a 34.5 kV power supply and a nominal operating power of 1.8 MW.
Zigor has installed a voltage dip compensation system without energy storage in this cluster which allows dips of up to 60% of the nominal voltage to be corrected thus maintaining the output at optimum values for the correct operation of the wells.
This Outdoor + Plug & Play solution includes all the implemented needs for its correct operation in an inhospitable environment, which is very common in the oil and gas sector. Notable among its characteristics are: Air conditioning systems, vandal protection, fire protection and an integrated communication system.
This solution has allowed the customer not only to recover the delayed production due to these types of problems, but to avoid component breakages due to deficient energy supply quality. The return on investment of the solution is estimated to be less than 1 year.
