SSi Artificial Lift

SSi Artificial Lift designs and builds intelligent long stroke rod lifting systems for oil production, with contact locations in Midland, Texas and Calgary, Alberta. The systems are designed, built and fully tested in Calgary, Canada. Alongside the pumping units the company supplies a gas-powered drive option, its own control logic, and well optimization software.

The company reports 100 clients and 2,600 installations. It positions the systems for operators looking to reduce energy usage, replace ESP systems, or produce from high-volume wells, deviated wells, and thermal wells running SAGD or cyclical steam.

Rod lift systems

The pumping unit uses a patented three-chamber hydraulic cylinder with nitrogen acting as the counterweight and hydraulic fluid moving the load. A 2:1 stroke length ratio means the cylinder travels at half the polished rod stroke length. The company describes the system as the world's longest hydraulic stroke rod lift system and states measured uptime of 99.7 percent or better.

Units are modular, splitting into a pumping unit and a hydraulic power unit, and ship on a single truck. There are no large rotating counterweights, so no heavy cranes are needed for repair work, and the company reports installations completed in under four hours.

Stroke lengths run from 240 inches on the 250 up to 360 inches on the 800, with a 400LS variant rated at 336 inches. Hydraulic power units are interchangeable across the range and come in 25, 40, 60, 75, 100, 125, 150 and 200 hp, plus the gas drive option.

Controls and Smart Speed Logic

Pump off control is built into the unit rather than supplied as a separate controller. The PLC monitors rod load continuously and adjusts its response against operator-set parameters, with speed and stroke length adjustable from a touchscreen while production continues.

The Smart Speed Logic control set covers:

• Turn around load and rod stretch control, with a pause at the bottom of the stroke adjustable from 0.1 to 999 seconds
• Rod hang-up and carrier bar separation control
• Up stroke rod sticking and sand build-up control
• Fluid pounding and rod buckling prevention
• Chemical injection control coordinated with load and position within the stroke

Units are SCADA-ready with remote access, carry an integrated load cell, and include PLC-controlled automatic shutdowns and a redundant cable system. The company reports customers seeing pump efficiency above 85 percent in gassy wells.

Gas drive for remote sites

The SSi Intelligent Gas Drive runs the same rod lift technology on wellhead gas, natural gas or propane where line power is not available. It uses an 8.1 litre V6 turbocharged 225 hp engine driving a 150 hp pumping unit and runs the same PLC as the electric unit, adding alarms and warnings specific to the gas engine. Full oil containment and noise reduction are included, and engine functions report to SCADA.

Optimization software

SSi offers XSPOC smart well optimization software, a ChampionX product, for remote operation and monitoring. Operators can start or shut down units remotely, change stroke speed and length, view surface and downhole cards, map well locations, and build trend reports on strokes per minute, minimum and maximum loads, and stroke length. External inputs such as chemical injection skids and flowline pressure monitoring can be added, and the software interfaces with existing SCADA systems as well as the legacy SSi install base.