American Oil and Gas Reporter - May 2019 - 58

SpecialReport: Gas Compression & Vapor Recovery

This 1,875 horsepower enhanced oil recovery compressor system by J-W Power Company is equipped with a 3606 Caterpillar engine, coupled with an Ariel JGF/4 with special
forged cylinders designed for EOR. According to the company, some have dubbed the
unit MOAC, the "Mother-of-all-Compressors."

New equipment sales include compression units that offer as much as 5,000
hp fabricated at the company's Midland
plant, which also tailors units for a variety
of midstream applications, including gas
processing, he says.
Puffing Away
Increasingly, operators in the Permian
and other plays are expressing interest in
J-W Power Company's compression system currently deployed in the Eagle Ford
and other basins for enhanced oil recovery
production, says James Barr, vice president
of sales.
Referred to informally as "huff-andpuff" technology, Eagle Ford operators
inject methane into a group of producing
oil wells and shut them in to allow the
gas to absorb the oil from the rock, then
produce and strip the gas and start the
cycle again, he says.
Although discharge pressures can vary
according to operator preference and
reservoir characteristics, the system compresses 1,000 psig inlet pressure up to
9,000 psig in some cases, Barr explains.
Once optimum reservoir pressure is attained, the well goes through a "soaking"
period before production resumes and
the oil is stripped from the gas stream at
58 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

the surface before the reinjection process
resumes, he says.
"Operators reinject the gas again for
another cycle and once they think they
have recovered as much as they are going
to recover, they move the unit to another
group of wells and repeat the process,"
he illustrates.
The first EOR compressor systems
built by J-W Power Company in 2012
incorporated a Dresser Rand compressor
frame and a Waukesha engine drive at
1,000 hp, Barr recalls. Currently, the
most common design built at J-W Power's
Longview, Tx., plant is equipped with a
3606 Caterpillar engine, with output of
1,875 hp, coupled with an Ariel JGF/4
with special forged cylinders designed
by Ariel for the EOR application, he continues. Vessel and piping walls can be
five-six inches or thicker depending on
engineering design, pressure requirements
and customer requirements.
"J-W also has 380 and 690 hp designs
for less ambitious projects with lower
volume requirements," Barr says. "These
units have a very rigorous engineering
design process with safety first and userfriendly operation as part of our fabrication goals."
While the 1,875 hp system has no for-

mal name, some refer to it as MOAC, the
"Mother-of-all-Compressors," Barr quips.
"It's a different animal than I have
seen built in the compression industry in
a long time," he acknowledges. "There is
a steep learning curve, because you are
going into another level of engineering
that requires rigorous thermal, pulsation
and other studies. The system has to
work with the customer's site design, so
continuous collaboration with our customer
is essential to success."
While the majority of development
has been in the Eagle Ford, pilot projects
are under way or planned in Oklahoma,
as well as in the Permian, Williston,
Piceance and D-J basins, Barr says.
"There is still a lot of evaluation on the
rock to see where this technology can be
effective," he comments. "A lot of companies are only starting to do pilot projects
and evaluate their reservoirs. Certainly,
gas availability is a big factor. Philosophies
vary on which gas works best, including
whether it needs to be native to the reservoir.
There continues to be a lot of ongoing research to find the best method. It's still a
developing technology."
Sweet Spot
J-W Power has fabricated high pressure units for the compressed natural
gas fueling market since 1991, progressing into high pressure air injection
units for fire flood projects early in the
previous decade, Barr details. That experience and expertise created a natural
progression into the high pressure EOR
market and the company's current offerings, he says.
"We have learned many lessons along
the way and expanded our engineering
knowledge and field operation capabilities
to get to this point along with a large
capital investment," Barr says. "With
more than 60,000 hp of high-pressure
packages in successful service, we are
considered the go-to company for this
type of fabrication, which is offered for
sale only at this juncture."
As one of the largest privately-owned
compression providers, with a fleet nearing
1 million hp and covering 17 states, J-W
Power Company also offers rental compression and third party services such as
American Oil and Gas Reporter - May 2019

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