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Upwing Energy 是从 Calnetix Technologies 分离出来的，这是一家总部位于加利福尼亚州的机械和发电技术公司，成立于 2011 年，当时该公司开发了地下压缩机系统 (SCS)。在接下来的十年中，Upwing 开发、测试和试用了其 SCS，并于 2018 年获得了 Equinor Technology Ventures 和 Cooper and Co. 的资助计划。该计划有助于加速井下气体压缩机的开发。

同时，Upwing 开发了增强型生产模拟器，该工具可以分析常规井和非常规井，并根据特定参数计算增量可生产储量。

Upwing Energy 首席执行官 Herman Artinian 最近与 E&P Plus 讨论了公司的发展、公司技术的运作方式以及人工举升行业的状况。

E&P Plus：公司是如何起步的？灵感是什么？

Artinian：  Upwing Energy 是 Calnetix Technologies 的创新分支。Calnetix 是一个高速技术孵化器，致力于识别战略机会以在各个行业中实现新应用。Calnetix 对石油和天然气领域非常熟悉，因为它通过其另一家子公司 Direct Drive Systems 向该行业推出了第一台高速永磁海底泵，Direct Drive Systems 于 2009 年被 FMC Technologies 收购。

在 2011 年展示油气田余热回收系统时，Calnetix 更加熟悉油气田运营，并认识到需要更先进的人工举升技术来从现有资产中提取更多碳氢化合物。该公司制定了一项战略计划，开发地下压缩机原型，以证明井下压缩的概念。随着概念验证现场试验的成功，Upwing Energy 成立了。

E&P Plus：您认为Upwing能够提供的人工举升行业还缺少什么？

Artinian： 目前还不存在天然气的人工举升。操作员能做的最好的事情就是在油井充满液体时使其液化。但实际上，这是一种维持生命的手段，而不是提高生产的手段。SCS 将储层压力降低到目前不可能达到的水平。这显着提高了产量和可回收性。

从工程和物理的角度来看，我们知道我们可以进行地下压缩工作，但在我们进行试验之前，我们并不确定它会对产量产生多大的影响以及储层将如何响应。仅通过我们的工具提供的数据为可用储量提供了新的线索，并为常规和非常规地层的勘探与生产开辟了新的生产策略。

从环境角度来看，地下压缩也提供了另一个巨大的胜利。与表面压缩不同，它不存在泄漏到环境中的风险，并且可以显着减少碳排放。 事实上，通过拆除井口压缩机并用 SCS 替换，可以抵消超过 900 万吨 CO _2当量。此外，运营商可以利用我们是经过认证的碳中和供应商这一事实。

E&P Plus：Upwing 提供的产品与市场上的产品有何不同？

Artinian： 它是完全独一无二的。当今市场上没有其他地下压缩机。由于我们独特的技术和来自 Calnetix 的高速系统的广泛背景，我们非常适合满足这一市场需求。

Upwing 将自己定位为一家服务公司，帮助运营商提高产量和可恢复性，而不仅仅是销售工具。Upwing 将评估资产并牵头部署和运营其先进系统，并按月收取费用。这降低了运营商的资本要求，并将设备的责任交给了 Upwing。

E&P Plus：随着运营商从“不惜成本生产”模式转向“产生现金流”，这对人工举升业务有何影响，您如何调整？

Artinian： 利用现有资产生产更多产品比开发新资产更具成本效益。SCS 将生产率提高 20% 至 200%，从而带来更高的现金流。由于压力井废弃程度较低，它还可以将采收率提高 20% 至 70%，从而扩大资产负债表。最后，它通过混合多相压缩机去除井眼和储层内由于气体流速较高而产生的液体，从而无需顶部液体泵和井口压缩机，从而降低了生产成本。因此，从某种意义上说，我们正在为运营商重塑人工举升业务，以适应这一转变。

E&P Plus：解释增强型生产模拟的工作原理以及它如何使生产商受益。

Artinian： 到目前为止，还没有必要开发增强型生产模拟，因为气井人工举升还不存在。操作员必须在给定的油藏压力下工作并尽可能多地生产。现在我们可以改变油藏压力并进行压降，将其降低至 80%，因此对更增强工具的需求非常迫切。Upwing 开发了独特的内部工具，能够在部署 SCS 时评估和预测生产。

Upwing 开发的增强型生产模拟 (EPS) 结合了油藏和井筒特征、井口条件和 SCS 操作范围来预测增量产量。该模拟利用分析方法和数值模拟来收敛结果。由于 SCS 能够在井眼处进行反液化（从而实现多相生产），因此沿生产油管将速度保持在临界值以上非常重要。

客户可以输入众所周知的井数据，包括井口压力、井口温度、井底温度、流入性能关系、管道长度、管道内径、压力比和流体成分，以模拟地下压缩机增加的气体流量和额外的可采储量。模拟还提供了有关如何规划完井几何形状和利用地下压缩能力来最大化生产增益潜力的见解。

SCS 优化压缩机参数和完井几何结构，以最大限度地提高产量。通过内部开发的自主控制装置不断监控和计算该过程，以根据采集管线中的压力变化以及生产流体密度变化来调整压缩机的速度和扭矩。这一切都是可能的，因为现在可以通过 SCS 获取大量新数据。

E&P Plus：该公司的 SCS 已获得认可。谈谈它是如何运作的以及它在行业中的独特之处。

Artinian： 南海通过降低井底流动压力并导致更高的储层压降来增加天然气产量和可采储量。它还通过在整个垂直和水平井眼中产生更高的气体速度将液体输送到地面，并通过提高离开压缩机时的气体温度来防止蒸汽冷凝。

地下压缩机由两个主要部件组成：带磁力轴承的高速密封永磁电机和混合湿气压缩机。这两个组件通过磁力耦合器耦合，将扭矩从密封电机传递到压缩机，无需机械轴或密封件，因此不需要电机保护器将电机与井下流体隔离。SCS 的无保护器架构提供了极其可靠的旋转解决方案，可降低总拥有成本，并且还可应用于石油回收。顶部变频驱动器在没有任何速度传感器的情况下高速控制电机。

Upwing 的 SCS 是唯一一款能够同时最大限度提高天然气和凝析油产量、可采储量、天然气就地采收效率和液体卸载的井下涡轮机械。所有这些好处都可以在陆上和海上环境中的任何类型的地层和井眼几何形状中实现，无论井在其使用寿命内的哪个位置。 

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Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the April issue of E&P Plus.
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Spun out of Calnetix Technologies, a California-based company producing machinery and power generation technologies, Upwing Energy emerged in 2011 as it developed its Subsurface Compressor System (SCS). Over the next decade, Upwing developed, tested and trialed its SCS, leading to a funding initiative in 2018 from Equinor Technology Ventures and Cooper and Co. The initiative helped accelerate the development of the downhole gas compressor.

Simultaneously, Upwing developed its Enhanced Production Simulator, a tool that analyzes conventional and unconventional wells and calculates the incremental producible reserves based on specific parameters.

Upwing Energy CEO Herman Artinian recently talked with E&P Plus about the company’s evolution, how the company’s technologies work and the state of the artificial lift industry.

E&P Plus: How did the company get started? What was the inspiration?

Artinian: Upwing Energy is an innovative offshoot of Calnetix Technologies. Calnetix is a high-speed technology incubator that identifies strategic opportunities to enable new applications in various industries. Calnetix is very familiar with the oil and gas sector, as it introduced the first high-speed permanent magnet subsea pump to the industry through another one of its subsidiaries, Direct Drive Systems, which was acquired by FMC Technologies in 2009.

While demonstrating waste heat recovery systems in oil and gas fields in 2011, Calnetix became more familiar with oil and gas field operations and identified the need for more advanced artificial lift technologies to extract more hydrocarbons from existing assets. The company created a strategic initiative to develop a subsurface compressor prototype to prove the concept of downhole compression. With the successful proof-of-concept field trials, Upwing Energy was formed.

E&P Plus: What did you feel was lacking in the artificial lift industry that Upwing could provide?

Artinian: Artificial lift for natural gas does not exist today. The best operators can do is deliquefy the well as it becomes liquid loaded. However, in reality, this is a means of life support rather than a way to enhance production. The SCS decreases the reservoir pressure to levels that are not possible today. This significantly increases production and recoverability.

From an engineering and physics standpoint, we knew we could make subsurface compression work, but we didn’t know for certain what a huge difference in production it would make and how the reservoir would respond until we did our trials. The data only available from our tool are shedding new light on the available reserves and opening up new production strategies for E&Ps in both conventional and unconventional formations.

Subsurface compression provides another huge win from an environmental standpoint as well. Unlike surface compression, there is no risk of leaks into the environment, and there is a significant savings in carbon emissions. In fact, over 9 million tons of CO₂ equivalent can be offset by removing a wellhead compressor and replacing it with an SCS. In addition, operators can take advantage of the fact that we are a certified carbon neutral supplier.

E&P Plus: How is what Upwing offers different from what’s on the market?

Artinian: It is completely unique. There are no other subsurface compressors available in today’s market. We were well-suited to address this market demand due to our unique technology and extensive background in high-speed systems that stem from Calnetix.

Upwing is positioning itself as a service company that will enable operators to increase production and recoverability instead of just selling a tool. Upwing will evaluate the assets and take the lead on deploying and operating its advanced systems for a monthly fee. This reduces the capital requirements for an operator and puts the responsibility on Upwing for the equipment.

E&P Plus: With operators shifting from the mode of “production at all costs” to “generate cash flow,” how does that impact the artificial lift business, and how do you adjust?

Artinian: It is significantly more cost effective to produce more from existing assets than developing new ones. The SCS increases the rate of production by 20% to 200%, resulting in higher cash flow. It also increases the rate of recovery by 20% to 70% due to lower pressure well abandonment, resulting in a larger balance sheet. Lastly, it removes liquids due to higher velocity gas within the wellbore and reservoir with its hybrid multiphase compressor, eliminating the need for topside liquid pumps and wellhead compressors, resulting in a lower cost of production. So, in a sense, we are reinventing the artificial lift business for operators to align with this transition.

E&P Plus: Explain how the Enhanced Production Simulation works and how that can benefit producers.

Artinian: Up to now, there wasn’t a need to develop enhanced production simulation simply because artificial lift for gas wells did not exist. The operators had to work with the given reservoir pressure and produce as much as possible. Now that we can alter the reservoir pressure and create a drawdown to decrease it up to 80%, the demand for more enhanced tools is eminent. Upwing has developed unique in-house tools to be able to evaluate and predict production when the SCS is deployed.

The Enhanced Production Simulation (EPS) developed by Upwing incorporates reservoir and wellbore characteristics, the wellhead conditions and the SCS operating ranges to predict incremental production. The simulation utilizes both an analytical approach and a numerical simulation to converge the results. Because the SCS enables deliquification at the wellbore (and therefore multiphase production), it is important to keep the velocities above critical along the production tubing.

Customers can input commonly known well data, including wellhead pressure, wellhead temperature, bottomhole temperature, inflow performance relationship, pipe length, pipe ID, pressure ratio and fluids composition, to simulate the increased gas-flow rate and additional recoverable reserves with a subsurface compressor. The simulations also provide insights on how to plan completion geometry and leverage the capability of subsurface compression to maximize the production gain potential.

The SCS optimizes both the compressor parameters and the completion geometry to maximize the production. This process is constantly monitored and calculated via internally developed autonomous controls to adjust the speed and the torque of the compressor as there are pressure changes in the gathering lines as well as production fluid density changes. This is all possible due to the significant amount of new data now available through the SCS.

E&P Plus: The company has been recognized for its SCS. Talk about how that works and what makes it unique in the industry.

Artinian: The SCS increases gas production and recoverable reserves by decreasing bottomhole flowing pressure and causing higher reservoir drawdown. It also carries liquids to the surface by creating higher gas velocities throughout the vertical and horizontal wellbores and prevents vapor condensation by increasing the temperature of the gas when exiting the compressor.

The subsurface compressor consists of two main components—a high-speed hermetically sealed permanent magnet motor with magnetic bearings and a hybrid wet gas compressor. These two components are coupled by a magnetic coupling that conveys torque from the hermetically sealed motor to the compressor with no mechanical shaft or seals, so there is no need for a motor protector to isolate the motor from downhole fluids. The SCS’ protector-less architecture provides an extremely reliable rotating solution for lower total cost of ownership and can also be applied to oil recovery. The topside variable frequency drive controls the motor at high speeds without any speed sensors.

Upwing’s SCS is the only downhole turbomachinery that can maximize gas and condensate production, recoverable reserves, gas-in-place recovery efficiency and liquid unloading at the same time. All of these benefits can be realized in any type of formation and wellbore geometry in both the onshore and offshore environments regardless of where the well is within its life span.