More than 60 per cent of oil wells in the Bahrain Field use artificial lift systems and these contribute about 50 per cent of its total oil production.

That emphasised the importance of artificial lift in the oil industry for the kingdom, Oil and Gas Affairs Minister and National Oil and Gas Authority (Noga) chairman Dr Abdulhussain Mirza told delegates at the opening session of the fifth Middle East Artificial Lift Forum (MEALF 2009) at the Gulf International Convention and Exhibition Centre yesterday.

'With the continued quest for increasing production worldwide and particularly from our region, the upstream petroleum industry has been venturing into unconventional initiatives to squeeze additional barrels from the developed reservoirs,' he said.

'These initiatives include the production of heavy oil, low energy reservoirs and thin and tight complex reservoirs.

The focus is now towards tapping into difficult reservoirs and at the same time improving and modernising the existing systems to become more efficient.'

'Artificial lift technologies play a key role in the production of crude oil,' he said.

'Over the years, significant developments in automation, information management and control have taken place in the field of artificial lift systems making these techniques more efficient, more reliable and cost effective.

'New forms of artificial lift systems have evolved while the proven systems have been revitalised with automation and information sharing capabilities.

'Frequent operational monitoring of such systems are no longer required as new units are equipped with advanced automation and control systems.'

He said that the application of artificial lift systems in the Bahrain Field had been one of the earliest such implementations in region.

'Wells have been produced on artificial lift as early and the 1960s,' he said.

'Because of the availability of high pressure gas from the Kuff reservoir, gas lifting has been the natural choice and it is now the widely applied lift mode.'

He said that Noga had moved to significantly increase production from the Bahrain Field and had selected Occidental Petroleum out of eight international oil companies as the preferred bidder to carry out this work.

Emphasis in this area would be placed on the optimisation of artificial lift and enhanced oil recovery techniques to achieve the objectives of this project.

'As we move towards revitalisation of the Bahrain Field through enhanced oil recovery and the exploitation of heavy oil and difficult reserves, the door is open to all forms of new and improved artificial life technologies,' he said.

MEALF has gained momentum over the years and it has now become more important than ever, he said.-TradeArabia News Service