Delta Automation Solution for Beam Pumping Unit Achieves High Quality, Highly Efficient Oil Production

Petroleum is an indispensable energy source in modern times, and petrochemical products have substantially raised people's standard of living. Traditional oil production is often criticized for low efficiency and high energy consumption. With technology development and environmental protection trends, the major goals for oil production have become improving production efficiency, saving energy, and reducing production costs.

In the petroleum industry, a beam pumping unit, commonly known as a nodding donkey, drives a piston that pumps oil from an oil well and presses it into an oil tank. The motor drives the linkage mechanism and controls the horse head and sucker rod moving up and down in reciprocating motion. Through consistent up strokes and down strokes, crude oil is raised from oil wells.

With its simple structure and easy operation, a beam pumping unit is widely used in oilfields. In the past, the motor of the beam pumping unit would operate at a fixed frequency and speed, which could result in problems such as low efficiency, high energy consumption, and serious mechanical damage.

Delta recently provided an automation solution to a customer's beam pumping unit in the Changqing region of China. In this case, the programmable logic controller (PLC) DVP Series was used to control the start/stop and operation frequency of an AC motor drive C2000 Series that adjusted the pumping frequency and timing of the sucker rod's up and down strokes. The load sensors on the sucker rod would send actual pressure data back to the PLC, so the operation of the beam pumping unit matched the load of the sucker rod. This mechanism ensured oil would be pumped in each up and down stroke cycle, reducing inefficient or ineffective extraction.

With real-time feedback of the oil well's pumping status, the pumping frequency of the beam pumping unit would be automatically adjusted, improving pumping efficiency, effectively reducing electricity by 20 %, and extending the life of the pumping units.

The PLC also transmitted the status of the AC motor drive, including the operating status, current and other data, to a human machine interface (HMI) DOP Series and SCADA system DIAView via industrial Ethernet switch DVS Series for real-time monitoring of the entire system. The operator could monitor the oil pumping status in the control center, saving time for on-site fine-tuning of the machines or AC motor drives. If any system errors ever occurred, the operator would be immediately informed of the problems for fast maintenance, maximizing overall productivity, and effectively reducing the burden on the staff.

Delta's solution provides customers with a stable monitoring and management system, and an efficient automation control solution to address the low-efficiency and high energy-consumption problems of nodding donkeys with remote and centralized system management. Delta's integrated products and solutions can be widely applied to oilfields and help save overall system construction costs, reduce energy consumption, ensure the stable operation of the oilfield, and achieve high quality and high efficiency oil production.