Event Covers State of the Art in Plugging and Abandonment

Abstract

The SPE Forum, “Shaping the Next Wave in Well Plugging and Abandonment” was held 18–22 March in The Hague, The Netherlands. It brought together leaders from production and service sector companies, regulators, and stakeholders to discuss issues that are shaping the well plugging and abandonment sector. The event attracted 77 specialists from around the world. Below are highlights and key points from each of the various sessions. Session 1 identified stakeholders, their hopes and concerns, risks and opportunities. There are large opportunities from agreed risk assessment methodology, tailored for the well. Operators and governments align fairly well in objectives, hopes, and fears. Authorities have very diverse interests, are concerned about leaks, technical standards, failure mode assessments, gold plating, lines of credit, maximized recovery, orphan wells, lack of transparency, accidents, emissions. Operators’ concerns are primarily around reputation and long-term integrity, liabilities, budget, regulatory clarity. Opportunities lie in collaboration, standards, and continuity. Multiple service providers see market share and differentiation as opportunities. They are concerned with penalties, scope overestimates, and project deferment. Single service providers struggle with long-term support from operators and regulators, lack of risk sharing, and early cutting of funding. Intellectual property is an opportunity. Academia and technology developers have concerns about R&D funding, access to field practice, exclusivity requests, and regulations that stifle progress. Opportunities relate to incubator (seed) funding and accelerating standards/regulations. The public is often concerned about environmental harm and loss of value. Extra compensation or community funding may be welcomed as an opportunity. Session 2 discussed uncertainties that surround the•well and subsurface conditions. There is no shortage of methods of•integrity recovery that have been tried. The industry needs to look further than the mean in its data and models. The implications of outliers can be undesirable. The industry often looks at the primary elements of the abandonment operation but needs•to also look at the system and the system objectives. Companies need to understand the subsurface and have access to data, which requires greater interaction from subsurface disciplines early in•the process. The industry is late in the lifecycle of our wells and the uncertainty in the condition and state of wells is inherent in everything that we do. There is no shortage in creativity, initiative, and opportunity in and outside of our industry—we should•use it.