International Conference on Communication and Signal Processing, April 6-8, 2016, India
A Neural Network Model for Electric
Submersible Pump Surveillance
Rajesh Sharma, Nitin Pandey
Abstract—The purpose of the study is to make an
assessment of the capability of Artificial Neural
Network in surveillance of Electric Submersible
Pumps, used for lifting oil from mature wells when
the natural pressure inside the well is not enough to
support the oil flow up to the surface. Electric
Submersible Pumps are one of the various processes
used to artificially lift oil out of wells when there is
insufficient reservoir pressure to keep the well
producing. In this paper we will be proposing an
Artificial Neural Network model to predict common
ESP failures before they occur by identifying the
conditions and parameters which may lead to ESP
failures. In our approach we will be using the real-
time data collected over a period of operation of
Electric Submersible Pumps run life containing the
information from surface and downhole data which
led to ESP failures or trends which may lead to ESP
failures. The selected data values from both surface
and downhole data values will act as input to the
ANN and output of the ANN would be if the input
conditions may lead to ESP failure or not. The neural
network will be trained to classify the trends or
conditions which may lead to ESP failures.
Index Terms—Electric Submersible Pumps (ESP),
Artificial Neural Network, downhole data, surface
data, ESP failures, ESP surveillance.
I. INTRODUCTION
More than 60 percent of the producing oil wells
require some type of assisted lift to produce the
recoverable oil [1]. Electric Submersible Pumps
(ESP) are typically used where there is insufficient
pressure to lift the fluids to the surface typically in
older, more watered-out wells. ESPs provide cost
effective production by boosting fluid production
from these less efficient, older reservoirs.
Electric Submersible Pump (ESP) is a device
which has hermetically sealed motor close-coupled
to the pump body [2-5]. The whole assembly is
submerged in the fluid to be pumped. The main
Rajesh Sharma is with the Amity Institute of Information
Technology, Amity University, Noida, India (e-mail:
rajesh.rasgotra@hotmail.com).
Nitin Pandey Sharma is with the Amity Institute of
Information Technology, Amity University, Noida, India
(e-mail: npandeyg@gmail.com ).
978-1-5090-0396-9/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
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advantage of this type of pump is that it prevents
pump cavitation, a problem associated with a high
elevation difference between pump and fluid
surface. Electric Submersible Pumps are used in oil
production to provide relatively efficient form of
“artificial lift”, able to operate across broad range
of flow rates and depths.
ESP system consists of both surface components
(housed in the production facility, for example an
oil platform) and sub-surface components (found in
well hole). Surface components include the motor
controller (often a variable speed controller),
surface cables and transformers. Subsurface
components typically include pump, motor, seal
and cables. A gas separator is sometimes installed.
The pump itself is a multi-stage unit with number
of stages being determined by the operating
requirements [2-6]. Each stage consists of a driven
impeller and diffuser which direct flow to the next
stage of pump. Pumps come in diameters from
90mm (3.5 inches) to 254mm (10 inches) and vary
between 1 meter (3 ft.) and 8.7 meters (29 ft.) in
length. The motor used to drive pump is typically a
three phase, squirrel cage induction motor, with a
nameplate power rating in the range of 7.5 kW to
560 kW (at 60 Hz).
Electric Submersible pump may fail to push oil
above to next stage of a multistage pump due to
number of reasons [7]. The ESP consists of several
components like a motor, a pump, an electric cable,
elastomer, etc.… ESP failure can, therefore, be
electric, mechanical, thermal or fluid/gas
composition. Although there are number of
potential reasons which can lead to failure of an
ESP most common factors are – Downhole
pressure, operating temperature, free gas into
pump, broken shaft, hole in tubing, blockage at
pump intakes, blockage at perforations, erosion of
pump surfaces, increase in water cut, increase in
frequency, etc. During the operation of the ESP
pumps over the oil fields, there can be number of
changes which can happen downhole or at the
surface which can impact the normal operation of
the Electrical Submersible Pump which can lead to
failure of ESP. These changes can be mechanical,
hydraulic or electric at the surface or downhole or
in the tubing and ESP equipment – pump, motor or
cable.
 The other major cause of the ESP failure is the
mineral deposits over the pump and motor body [2,
7]. This deposit is also known as Scale. Scale build
up in the pump stages is one of the common
reasons for the ESP pump assemblies which
eventually blocks the fluid flow. This also
decreases the pump efficiency over time until the
pump failure occurs.
To effectively monitor the performance of Electric
Submersible pumps, the ESPs include various types
of downhole sensors, also known as downhole
gauges that measure several key parameters like
motor temperature, well temperature, pump
discharge temperature, pump intake pressure, pump
discharge pressure, and motor vibrations [1, 7].
These sensors provide ESP operating conditions
downhole as well as help in understanding the well
productivity.
The Operating Companies and Service
Companies are doing tremendous work and efforts
worldwide to design an effective ESP Failure
prediction system by employing various
approaches such as statistical, analytical, and
technical, etc. [4] Different types of Surveillance
and monitoring tools are being used by Oil and Gas
– Operating and Service companies. The overall
aim to these systems is to optimize and increase the
lifetime of the ESP system. The systems, however
are not able to effectively predict the when the ESP
assembly or a stage of a multistage pumps is going
to fail. These systems make available the data for
effective analysis by experienced Petroleum
Engineers and experts who can make decisions
based on the current runtime data. Correlations are
also done with historical data using various
statistical and analytical tools to make predictions.
In this paper we will be trying to analyse the ESP
parameters which may lead to following ESP
failures [7]:
1. Higher Flow rates, low pump intake pressures.
2. Operating temperatures leading to damage to
ESP motor seal and tubing.
3. Gas production, gas to oil ratio leading to
decrease in pump throughput.
4. High Fluid Viscosity leading to pump failures.
5. Pump being used outside its operating range.
6. Flow velocities leading to overheating of
motor or eroding of motor.
7. Voltage loss in motor cables.
8. Corrosion and depositions leading to blockages
in pump, debris in pump, shaft failures due to
broken shafts, change in downhole pressure,
blockage at perforations and pump intake.
Section II describes artificial neural network,
Section III describes an artificial neural network
(ann) for esp surveillance Section IV conclude this
paper.
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II. ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK
An Artificial Neural Network is a mathematical
computational model which is based on the human
neural system [8]. A computational unit in ANN is
an artificial neuron which is emulation of the
human neuron, which is interconnected to other
artificial neurons and process information using a
connectionist approach to computation. Fig. 1.
Shows a schematic design of an artificial neuron:
Fig. 1. Artificial Neuron or a basic computational unit.
Artificial Neurons like humans learn by
experiments i.e. ANN is an adaptive system which
learns to adapt or changes its structure based on the
information presented to it while learning phase. A
trained neural network is capable of solving various
problems such as finding pattern or trends in large
quantity of data, image recognitions, compute
values of output variables for inputs which they
have learned to compute during the training phase,
etc.
III. AN ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK
(ANN) FOR ESP SURVEILLANCE
Since Neural networks are capable of recognizing
trends or patterns in large volumes of data it can be
best suited for solving the problem of Electric
Submersible pump surveillance [8]. Traditional
approach for ESP surveillance involves real-time
monitoring of ESP data both surface and downhole.
These systems either make predictions using
complex engineering calculations or makes the
real-time data available to experienced Petroleum
engineers and experts who can make decisions of
the health of ESP system.
Since a neural network can be trained to
effectively recognize trends or patterns, it can be
employed in ESP surveillance and hence once it
has learned from training data sets (containing ESP
failure or conditions which led to ESP failures), it
may be a valuable resource for effectively
surveying the ESP operations and generate
Alerts/Alarms for experienced experts and
petroleum engineers to validate the warnings raised
by ANN ESP surveillance system [3, 8]. Our
design of ANN for ESP surveillance consists of a ESP failures. Common ESP failure conditions and
three layer neural network - input layer will take a effect of them on ESP performance is given below
mixture of surface and downhole data variables, in the Table I. The table also gives the measure of
hidden layer will process the input variables and effect of ESP parameter values on ESP pump in
present an input to the output layer which will be a terms of Warnings or Error
set of vector containing output values for common

TABLE I
COMMON ESP PARAMETERS, IDEA OF ESP FAILURES AND HOW AND WHEN THEY CAN OCCUR

S. No. Pump Failure Check Condition Output

1. Pump Intake Pressure (PIP) PIP < Gas Pressure at Intake Danger – Flow rate too high but the Pump
Check intake pressure is too low.

2. Gas Ratio Check Max allowed gas ratio = 80/100 = 0.8 Warning – Gas before separation is greater
than max gas ratio allowed to enter the
Gas Ratio before separation (Gas ratio before pump. Could decrease the throughput of the
entering pump) > Max allowed Gas ratio pump.

3. Turpin Coefficient Check Max Turpin Coeff. = 1 Warning – The rate of liquids (oil + water)
is less as compared to gas being produced
by the well.

Turpin coefficient is a calculated Turpin coeff. > Max Turpin Coeff.

value and depends upon Gas
Rate, Liquid Rate entering the
pump and PIP

4. Fluid Viscosity Checks Max Viscosity = 10 Warning -

Fluid viscosity is calculated value Viscosity > Max Viscosity

and depends upon temperature,
pressure, gas and oil composition

5. Gas Locking Check Lock Ratio >= 1 Danger – Gas into the pump is beyond the
gas locking ratio. Pump may not be able to
pull the oil out of reservoir.

Lock Ratio = Gas At Intake /

Pump Component’s Gas lock
Ratio

6. ROR Check: Max Graph Range = Pump ‘s Max Graph Range Danger – Pump is being used outside its
max graph range.
Pump Intake Rate = oil rate + gas
rate + water rate
Pump Intake Rate > Max Graph Range

7. Outside Range Ratio Check Max Pump Outside Range Percentage = 10 Warning – Pump is being used outside its
operating range i.e. min/max intake and

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 Outside Pump Operating Range Max Pump Outside Range Ratio = 10/100 = 0.1 discharge value are not in Pump’s operating
(Calculated value – depends upon range values.
discharge rate and intake rate of Outside Pump Operating Range > 0.1

pump component)

8. Power Cable Voltage Loss Check Max Cable Voltage Loss = 30 V/Ft Danger – Power Cable Voltage Loss
exceeds max voltage loss V/Ft
Power Cable Voltage Loss Per Thousand > 30

Power Cable Voltage Loss Per

Thousand (Calculated value and
depends upon power cable length,
frequency and current, etc.
flowing through it)

9. Power Cable Temperature Check Power Cable Temperature Ratio > 1 Danger – Power Cable temperature above
rated temperature. Can burn the cable off
resulting in Pump power cut-off

Power Cable Temperature Ratio

(Calculated value and depends
upon cable amp factor, operating
current and cable max design
temperature)

10. Motor Lead Cable Temperature Motor Lead Cable Temperature Ratio > 1 Danger
Ratio Check

Motor Lead Cable Temperature

Ratio (Calculated Value)

11. Flow Velocity Check Minimum Flow Velocity = 1

Max Flow Velocity = 7.5

Flow Velocity = Flow Velocity Max Abrasive Flow Velocity = 12

around motor

Flow Velocity < Min Flow Velocity Danger – Flow Velocity around motor is
less than 1 ft/sec. Could over heat the motor

Flow Velocity > Max Flow Velocity Danger – Can erode the motor

Flow Velocity > Max Abrasive Flow Velocity Warning – Only problematic with abrasive
fluids.

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12. Motor Load Ratio Check Motor Load Ratio > 1 Danger – Load on motor exceeds the rated
Motor Horse Power value.

Motor Load Ratio (Calculated

Value)

13. Motor Skin Temperature Check Max Motor Skin Temperature = 300F Danger

Motor Stage Internal Temperature > Max Motor

Skin Temp
Motor Stage Internal Temp.
(Calculated Value)

14. Motor Windings Temperature Motor Stage Internal Temperature > Motor Stage Danger
Check Rated Temp

Motor Stage Internal Temp

Danger - Start-up Voltage must be at least

15. Start-up Voltage Check Min Start-up Voltage Percent = 50V
Min Start-up Voltage Percent % of
operating volts.
Min Start-up Voltage Ratio = 50/100 = 0.5

Start-up Ratio > Min Start-up Voltage Ratio

Start-up Ratio = Surface Drive’s

Start-up Voltage/ Motor Voltage

Based on the Table above, we have identified directly measured from surface and downhole
following input parameters which will be presented sensors or calculated inputs using the combination
to the Artificial Neural Network’s input: of the above mentioned variables. Each of these
inputs will be assigned a specific weight depending
1. Pump Intake Pressure upon the severity of the input variable. The hidden
2. Gas Pressure layer will be designed to have the ability to produce
3. Gas Rate output based on the type and model of the ESP
4. Water Rate Pump being used in the oil lift operation. Since
5. Liquid/Oil Rate ESP pump used in oil lift operation is a multistage
6. Fluid Viscosity pumps having number of stages required to pull up
7. Pump Dog Leg Severity the oil, the input conditions are compared against
8. Pump Inclination each stage and output will be calculated depending
9. Gas At Intake upon the values in each stage being presented as
10. Gas before separation input. Also the ESP pump consists of components
11. Power Cable Voltage Loss like Motor, Cable, etc.., and the motor and cable
12. Power Cable Temperature has its own operational ratings within which they
13. Motor Load Ratio can operate smoothly. The hidden layer in our
14. Motor Winding temperature network will compare each of these inputs against
15. Motor Skin Temperature the operating ranges and will produce an output
16. Pump intake rate depending upon the inputs. In other word, our
17. Pump Discharge rate design of Artificial Neural Network will be
18. Start-up Voltage learning from the inputs and ESP Pump
19. Motor Voltage components operating range to successfully predict
20. Flow Velocity at Pump Stage. if ESP Pump is about to fail or the current inputs
are leading the pump to failures. The output layer
The parameters identified will act as the input layer will have only one node depicting if ESP Pump is
of the neural network. These parameters are either going towards failure i.e. if the present set of input

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variables present a situation which if not taken care
of can lead to ESP pump failure in future Or the
present set of inputs are suitable for smooth
functioning of the ESP Pump.
The Artificial Neural Network will be trained via
supervised learning algorithm. The input data is
provided by EICE International Inc., a leading Oil
and Gas Operator company working specifically on
Artificial Lift Solutions for the Oil and Gas
Companies. The test data will be chosen and will
used to train our Network. Once the Network is
fully trained, we will test the ANN by supplying
real time data into the Network.
IV. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
Artificial Neural Networks can be trained to
identify patterns or trends which may lead to ESP
failures when sufficient ESP run life data is
available to train the neural networks. Taking
reference from this proposed model, we will try to
analyse the severity and magnitude of contribution
of each of the input variable towards the ESP
failure. More the magnitude, more the weight will
be assigned to the corresponding input. The input
data sets will also be formed to act as input the
ANN model for identifying ESP failures and
enhance it and do modifications so as to make the
Neural Network to recognize conditions or trends
leading to ESP failures. We also be working on
identifying more input parameters (both surface
and downhole) which are not studied in this paper
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so as to present ANN with as much as data which
can help it efficiently identify ESP failures.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research was supported by
Dr. Nitin Pandey in collaboration with Amity
Institute of Information Technology, Noida
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