New technology trends for effective plug and abandonment

Abstract

Plug and Abandonment (P&A) has become a major focus in the petroleum industry and especially in Norway due to the maturity of the fields. Therefore, an extensive number of wells to be abandoned just show how big the challenge will be and how much focus the regulatory authorities should include into this issue.

From an operational point of view, P&A is the last phase of the life cycle of a well and hence no return of capital from it is actually expected. Furthermore, the driver for operators relies under a strict regulatory framework and the responsibility for the abandoned well long after the wellbore has been plugged and the surface equipment removed.

Under such uneconomical conditions, this thesis intends to investigate new technology trends that provide an effective P&A operation. Therefore, first the regulatory framework is deeply studied for better understanding of the Norwegian structure and requirements for P&A. An example case of a Conventional Platform P&A is provided with the intention of identifying the operational procedure and conventional tools. Finally, the new technology trends are introduced, analyzed and compared from a technical/operational point of view.

By understanding the similarities, key features, limitations and differences between the new technology and criteria it is possible to create an analysis case for the same well presented in the example case. This analysis intends to find the maximum and minimum operational steps that can result by using these new technologies thereafter validating their benefit over a conventional P&A operation.