Jennifer Julian is a Well Intervention Advisor for BP Alaska Consolidated Team. She is an expert in complex well interventions and is a recognized leader in advances in coiled tubing, tractor and well-integrity technology and non-rig remediation. Julian has been a major technical contributor to the success of Alaska’s wellwork program for 20 years, including 6 years in the field. She has authored more than 15 papers on all facets of wellwork intervention and has received 9 technical achievement awards from Arco and BPin recognition of her contributions to the well intervention discipline. Julian was awarded the 2007 SPE Western North America Region Drilling & Completions Engineer Award, and 2007 Alaska Chapter SPE Engineer of the Year. She holds a BS in petroleum engineering.

Jennifer Y. Julian, BP Exploration (Alaska), Inc.

Twenty Years of Wellwork: Interventions and Innovations at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska

Prudhoe Bay, with its long history of innovative wellwork intervention advances, continues to push the limits of wellwork technology as its wells become increasingly mature and complex. Developing cutting edge technologies is the key to ensuring safe, environmentally sound and economic recovery of mature oil wells, but how is this done successfully?

Well integrity is foremost on everyone’s mind and innovative well integrity diagnostics at Prudhoe Bay include revolutionary ultrasonic leak-detection logs to identify ultra-small leaks. Fiber-optic distributed temperature surveys that measure real-time temperature along the entire wellbore have also been used successfully. Leak identification is just the first step to bringing a well back in service. Prudhoe Bay’s advances in non-rig tubing repairs include innovative tubing straddles allowing inexpensive non-rig remediation for arctic, offshore and remote locations.

Coiled tubing (CT) holds the key for low-cost remote and offshore well interventions and Alaska is a leader in CT technology. It is a well-published fact that wells are being drilled that are deeper, further and harder to work on than at any other time in history. Though these wellbores are designed to be “interventionless,” history suggests that, at some point in the life of the well, intervention will be required. Fiber optic coiled tubing, the marriage of CT and fiber optics, has become a key enabler for multilateral intervention at Prudhoe Bay. 

With more than 4,000 well interventions per year, Prudhoe Bay has been, and continues to be, one of the leaders in wellwork technology. How were these new technologies implemented so successfully? The key is strong relationships with field personnel, strong economic justification and well-designed field trials.