Visualizing Energy's Future: Heavy Oil, Carbon Credit Trading, Resurgence of Megaprojects
Authors: Langley Diane 
Published: February 2015

More than 8,000 professionals expected in San Antonio, Texas, 24–27 September for the 2006 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) will get a comprehensive look into the future. What outlook is emerging? What are the causes and effects?

Technical presentations will foretell the future of drilling and completions; projects, facilities, and construction; production and operations; reservoir description and dynamics; management and information; and health, safety, and environment. The following six presentations on imminent industry developments have been selected as some of the best papers and most representative of the industry future that is already taking shape.

Elements of Well Integrity

"At 0400 hours each morning, a computer program automatically starts and scans all pressure, well-test, and other data, and generates a ‘Well Integrity Diagnostic Report,’ "say the authors of paper SPE 102524. Managers accountable for particular areas, lead operators, and other responsible individuals are kept informed of well status through another report generated each morning. This "Area Management Report" includes sections listing wells with pressure greater than the maximum allowable working pressure, for example, or wells needing safety valves. It also provides Key Performance Indicators such as "Put on Production" times for new wells and water-injection targets.

Cradle-to-grave well-integrity management (WIM) may be complex, but implementation of WIM initiatives are being proved attainable by BP at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. The paper's authors discuss how a WIM system at Prudhoe Bay has been evolving since field startup in 1977 (Fig. 1).

Because some wells have a lifetime of 100 years that entails sidetracks and a final abandonment that is expected to last forever, integrity management can be a daunting task. It can also present potential conflicts with production delivery contracts because of resources being diverted to well mechanical evaluations and wells being shut in. Also, interventions associated with mechanical anomalies that do not affect production may receive a lower priority and lead to backlogs of wells with anomalies.

BP manages this integrity-management task in Alaska using a WIM system consisting of seven components—accountability and responsibility, well-operating procedures, well-intervention procedures, a tubing-and-casing-integrity program (Fig. 2), wellhead and tree maintenance, safety-valve maintenance, and knowledge of standards.

The focus of this paper is on the well-operations and -interventions phases. The authors review the rationale behind implementation of the WIM system in Prudhoe Bay, pointing out that engineering aspects of well integrity are receiving increasing attention; the issue of sustained casing pressure is also shaping current well-integrity practices and lessons learned.

The authors review well integrity as defined in the NORSOK Standard D-010 (developed by the Norwegian petroleum industry) with its effective summary of the facets of "application of technical, operational, and organizational solutions to reduce risk of uncontrolled release of formation fluids throughout the life cycle of a well."

According to the authors, the rigorous conditions in Prudhoe Bay offered an excellent opportunity to institute a WIM program that is clearly not just a paper exercise. The WIM system daily addresses BP's 1,330 wells on the North Slope of Alaska. The field includes 416 gas lift, 591 natural flow, and 323 injector wells. Daily monitoring and reporting combine BP's needs with those of the primary state regulatory agency, the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission; address local events; and chronicle implemented solutions.