Chapter 1 - Basic Plunger Operation

01-00 - Introduction (6 min.) Sample Lesson
01-01 - Plunger basics - Liquid Loading Explained (15 min.)
01-02 - Impact of Liquid Loading on Production (16 min.)
01-03 - Bottom Hole Spring (14 min.)
01-04 - Basic Plunger Design (28 min.)
01-05 - Plunger Design - (continued) (8 min.) Quiz: 01-05 - Plunger Design - (continued)

Chapter 2 - Lubricators

02-01 - Lubricator Type and Design (17 min.)
02-02 - Kinetic Energy and the Lubricator Deceleration Spring (11 min.)
02-03 - Removing the Plunger and Safe Catcher Operation (12 min.)
02-04 - Plunger Basics Controller and Sensor Basics (32 min.)
02-05 - Picking the Right Plunger and Setting the Right Closed Time (23 min.)
02-06 - Plunger Rise Speed, Setting the Open Time and Target Time (10 min.) Quiz: 02-06 - Plunger Rise Speed, Setting the Open Time and Target Time

Chapter 3 - Horizontal Well Applications

03-01 - Fluid Movement in the Hz Section of the Well (9 min.)
03-02 - End of Tubing Placement in a Vertical Well and Hz Wells (12 min.)
03-03 - Packers with Plunger Lift Wells (8 min.)
03-04 - Flow Challenges with Hz Wellbores (11 min.) Quiz: 03-04 - Flow Challenges with Hz Wellbores

Chapter 4 - System Selection

04-01 - Plunger Lift System Types (10 min.)
04-02 - GAPL/PAGL Application (Gas Assisted Plunger Lift) (24 min.)
04-03 - Challenges of Producing Hz Wells with Other Systems (8 min.)
04-04 - Basic Gas Lift Introduction (25 min.)
04-05 - Hydrate Awareness (8 min.)
04-06 - Advanced Optimization (13 min.) Quiz: 04-06 - Advanced Optimization

Plunger Lift, Gas Lift and GAPL Basics / Chapter 1 - Basic Plunger Operation

Lesson 01-00 - Introduction

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Transcript

01. Lesson 1.00: Introduction 02. Instructor Background 03. Course Outline 03. Course Outline (2)

01. Lesson 1.00: Introduction

Hey, welcome. Thank you for joining me. I'm Clint Mason with Kaizen Well Solutions. Today we're going to talk about Plunger Lifts,Gas Lift, and GAPL, PAGL (Gas-Assisted Plunger Lift, Plunger-Assisted Gas Lift).
There's a number of chapters we're going to go through. This is a pretty non-engineering base course. It's really more about operations, understanding what's going on and trying to speak more towards an operator-level understanding. Plunger lifts have been around for a long, long time, and there's a lot of information out there. But what's new is horizontal wells, what's new is the type of wells that we're dealing with, the large amount of fluid that we are dealing with. And how plungers are being operated and what they're operating in has been quite an experience and a learning challenge for even myself who's been doing this for almost 40 years now.

02. Instructor Background

I'm Clint Mason. I've spent almost 40 years working in the oil and gas industry, from construction, operations, and probably the last 25 or 27 years I've been pretty focused on well optimization. My very first plunger lift I ever saw was back in 1988, I guess, and I guess that dates me a little bit, but anyways, over that time I've got to experience and learn a lot. During these past 25 or 30 years I've created 2 or 3 different companies. I've worked for multiple companies focused on oil and gas, very focused on plunger lift and gas lift and well optimization using those techniques. Today I'm president of Kaizen Well Solutions. Kaizen has been around since 2020 and we've been very focused on innovative lubricator designs, plungers. And really the majority or probably 80% of what we do are in high pressure, high-volume horizontal wells, and that's been the majority of our experience over the last 5 years. Before that time I, again, focused on plunger assisted gas lift many, many years, from very shallow stripper wells to much more complex horizontal wells.

03. Course Outline

So today we've got basically 4 chapters with about 20 lessons in it. In the beginning we're going to basically talk about some liquid loading, what's going on downhole, why we're having these issues keeping wells producing, the impacts of liquid loading on production. Then we're gonna go through briefly and talk about the parts and pieces of bottomhole spring basic plunger design, some lubricator types.
In Chapter 2 we're gonna talk about: Kinetic energy, which is very important for the safety and understanding why we need to control plunger speed to surface, and actually certain plungers as they're falling; We're going to talk about removing a plunger and safe-catcher operations. Many, many important steps to take there, especially in these high-pressure wells where hydrates and different things can form; Plunger basics, some controls, some sensor overview; Then we're gonna talk about picking the right plunger and setting the right close time, something that a lot of people don't focus on. They've always assumed that picking the right plunger has to do with total production and not always the way a well builds up; And we're gonna talk about plunger rise speed, setting the open time and target time. So we're going to start getting into some basic understanding around how plungers are operating.

04. Course Outline (2)

In Chapter 3 we're going to talk about: Some fluid movement in the horizontal. This is where we're gonna start focusing more on horizontal wells and the difficulties behind making fluid move to where you can actually carry it to surface with a plunger. And that's a big part of the learning we've got from horizontal wells on manipulating wells and it's much different than operating a vertical plunger lift well; Things like end of tubing placement, key to making these wells operate; How do packers operate with plungers, and you may be surprised to learn that packers aren't always a bad thing in plungers (which used to be the thought in the past); Some flow challenges with wellbores, and explain why some of the other operating systems struggle in these horizontal wells (I'm not gonna spend much time on that, but just to explain why there's some difficulties); And then a few plunger system types, like single stage, multi-stage, tapered multi-stage plungers, and a few things like that, just to give you an idea that it's not a one-and-done thing. There's multiple ways that we can configure these to operate in much lower GLR applications.
In Chapter 4 we're going to talk about: GAPL applications (Gas Assisted Plunger Lift), explain what that meansvs. PAGL; Challenges of producing horizontal wells with other systems; Some basic gas lift introduction; Proper lubricator and wellhead setups (very short-paced, just to kind of show and highlight some of the key things when you're setting up a wellhead); And finally, a little bit of hydrate awareness. And that'll be kind of the end of this lesson.
As we go through this, there will be "Ask the Instructor" button (I'm supposed to point down and tell you that) if you have more questions. This is a pretty high-level or I would say medium-level conversation. We can really dig into some more stuff if you have questions or things that you want me to spend more time on. I'm happy to do that in the next round of videos that we'll do.
So now it's time to get started, I guess. Here we go on our Basic Operations of the Plunger.