In this paper we describe control challenges related to operation of oil wells equipped with Electric Submersible Pumps (ESP) and formalize them in a control problem setting in the language of control system engineers. Then we present a simple dynamic model of an oil well equipped with ESP. This model can be used for controller development. To solve this problem, we propose a Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategy and present experimental results of an MPC controller successfully tested in a large scale test facility with a full scale ESP, live crude oil in an emulated oil well.