Hassi Messaoud is a mature oil field with more than 1,100 production wells. Approximately half of the wells are natural flow and the other half use continuous gas lift (CGL) with concentric (CCE) strings. To reduce the usage of the high volume of lift gas, intermittent gas lift (IGL) was selected in a pilot project to evaluate its applicability in the field for wells characterized by high gas/oil ratio (GOR) and without continuous concurrent water injection (with lift gas) to dissolve salt deposited downhole.
Production Overview
Field production began in 1957. During the first 20 years, all production wells were naturally flowing; in 1980, gas lift was introduced into the field development and has remained the only artificial-lift method. Electrical submersible pumping systems have been introduced into the field recently.
