Contents

Best Practice - General Principles

Existing Regulations & Guidelines
Reducing Abandonment Costs
Abandonment Complications
Summary

Reducing Abandonment Costs

Well Design
Well Construction / Reporting
Detailed Data Review
Leave Tubulars In-Situ
Rigless Abandonments
Alternative Technologies

Well Design
Design the well with abandonment in mind
Isolate:
Acquifers
Permeable zones
Hydrocarbon zones

Remember the need for a contiguous plug

Remember the need for double barriers
Dont save cement unnecessarily!

Its easier to abandon this.

Contiguous
abandonment
plugs

This well only

requires cement
in the production
casing to make it
safe

Than this.
This well may
require cement
in the production
casing and one
or more annuli
to make it safe

This plug is not a

long term barrier
so the annuli also
need cementing

Permeable
zones?
Influx
possible

Cementing annuli can be a problem..

Casings not always centralised

Mud settled / congealed
Difficult to clean up and obtain circulation
Not sure where the cement is going

Conclusion: Annulus remedial cement jobs

are often unsuccessful so avoid them if
you can by good well design

Well Construction / Reporting

Cement tops are often inaccurate
Quality of cement jobs is often poor
Insufficient effort is usually made to record
data that is needed for P+A planning
All too often the quality of the final report is
inadequate for good abandonment planning

Well Construction / Reporting

Conclusion: Make sure good quality
cement and formation data is available and
properly recorded for future abandonment
planning. Consider running cement
evaluation logs on the early wells in any
development to ensure the cement quality
and tops are as planned.

Detailed Data Review

It is worth spending engineering time
reviewing the well data in detail before
commencing an abandonment project.
Determine which zones need isolating and
prepare an abandonment philosophy for
each field (number and location of plugs,
test criteria, tubulars to be recovered etc)

Detailed Data Review

Consider the impact of:

tubing / casing leaks

loss zones
plugged annuli
incorrectly reported cement tops
over-pressured zones (from intra-zone
communication during production)

Risk assess the abandonment program

Leave Tubulars In-Situ

This is potentially one of the best ways of
reducing abandonment costs because it
saves time and can eliminate the need for a
rig
The main drawback with this solution is that
it may result in a poor annular seal
Accepted practice in UK, USA but not
Norway

Rigless Abandonments

Large potential cost savings

Use production tubing to place cement
If tubing leaks then coil may be used
Platform cranes can sometimes be used to
recover surface tubulars
Severance of the casings below seabed is a
challenge if no rig available

Alternative Technologies

Resin sealing compounds to replace cement

Mud to cement
Slickline perforating
Rigless abandonments
Abrasive severance of casings below seabed
Vessel based abandonments (subsea wells)

Abandonment Complications
A great many things can complicate an
abandonment project, all of which need to
be considered during the planning and risk
assessment stages. This is particularly true
for older wells.

Abandonment Complications

Tubing and casing corrosion / leaks

Parted tubing / casing
Tubing restrictions
Failed tubing and annular safety valves
Faulty Xmas tree valves
LSA disposal
Mud disposal (particularly OBM)

Abandonment Complications

Hydrocarbon disposal
Presence of ESPs
Downhole control lines, cables etc
Subsea wellhead pack-offs (restricted
circulated path)
Wellheads locked into drilling templates
Lack of platform space, facilities, crane