“I actually started out in aerospace, and while that was interesting, I felt oil and gas had more opportunity for creative thought and innovation,” he said. He is now retired and living in Spring Branch, Texas. He won the SPE Gulf Coast Regional Production and Operations Award in 2015 and participated on the SPE 2013 Artificial Lift Forum program committee in 2013.
He has six patents, including “Reciprocating Rod Pump for Sandy Fluids ” he authored a book titled Artificial Lift Methods and he edited all artificial lift papers that came out of Weatherford. He wrote an SPE paper ( 170646) about collaboration between service companies and universities to improve teaching of production optimization using artificial lift. He has helped train many of today’s experts in artificial lift, including providing content and instruction at the undergraduate and graduate levels at several universities. Lane has been a leading voice for research and innovation in artificial lift, especially related to challenges in deep horizontal wells. He holds a BS in mechanical engineering and an MS in mechanical engineering design, both from the University of Texas at Arlington.
He was a founding member of the Artificial Lift Research and Development Council (ALRDC) and served as chairperson of the R&D committee. “Bill” Laneīill Lane has worked in the oil and gas industry for 40 years, first for Otis Engineering (now Halliburton Energy Services), and more recently for Weatherford International, where he held vice president positions over artificial lift research and development, elastomer systems, PCP systems, artificial lift emerging technologies, and artificial lift training. It is that new ‘vision’ that has the potential of driving artificial lift to its zenith.” William C. The next generation of artificial lift engineers will have much better tools and have different understandings of how their knowledge interacts with the science of artificial lift. There is ample opportunity to explore and improve how each of those methods is practiced. “Some would suggest that artificial lift is at its zenith, but it only appears that way when looking at the methods from the perspective of current technology. “There are now several established methods of artificial lift, each with its own history, body of knowledge, and practices,” he said. The goal has not yet been met, but if you really want to know what happens in gas lift, understanding the real behavior of gas lift valves is the first step. “Gas lift has been practiced as an art since its first use,” Decker said, “and I attempted to push the boundaries into the realm of science.
His company also developed the Dynalift gas lift simulator that is currently marketed by Weatherford. His company, Decker Technology, manufactures an Automatic Valve Testing tool that verifies the quality of valves before sending them to the field. While Herald Winkler pioneered the concept of gas lift valve testing, Decker took it mainstream and integrated the use of valve performance in gas lift design and trouble shooting. These VPC correlations were distributed to all VPC members and have now been incorporated into WinGLUE, SNAP, PROSPER, WellFlo, PipeSim, and OLGA, as well as into member companies’ inhouse software. During his tenure at the consortium, he personally tested and developed custom correlations for 59 different commercially available gas lift valves and 216 valve-port size combinations. In 1997, he founded the Valve Performance Clearinghouse (VPC) consortium and served as administrator until 2014, when he handed over administration to Louisiana State University. Upon his retirement from Otis in 1993, Decker formed his consulting business, Decker Technology. After earning his BS degree in 1971 from Michigan State University, he worked on gas lift projects around the world, first with Teledyne Merla, then Otis Engineering.
He has served on numerous API and ISO committees writing standards for gas lift equipment design and testing, and he has written numerous SPE papers on gas lift valve performance.
Ken Decker has practiced gas lift for more than 30 years and is considered an expert in the use of gas lift valve performance, design, and troubleshooting.