Summary
A number of serious well failures in recent years led to investigations of
well-integrity issues. The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) performed a
pilot well-integrity survey based on supervisory audits and requested input
from seven operating companies, 12 preselected offshore facilities, and 406
wells. The wells were a representative selection of production and injection
wells with variation in both age and development categories.
The pilot project indicates that 18% of the wells in the survey have
integrity failure, issues, or uncertainties, and 7% of these are shut in
because of well-integrity issues. The selection of wells and the companies
indicate that the statistics are representative.
The well incidents in the past and the results of the pilot well-integrity
survey revealed that the industry needs to increase focus on barrier
philosophy. Control of barrier status is an important health, safety, and
environment (HSE) factor to avoid major incidents caused by unintentional leaks
and well-control situations. Knowledge of well-integrity status at all times
enables the companies to take the right actions in a proactive manner to
prevent incidents.
The paper presents the results and the conclusions from the pilot survey. In
addition, a number of technical well failures will be presented, identifying
critical elements such as corrosion, leaks, and operational factors. In
particular, the understanding of barrier regulations, standards, and
implementation was found to be inadequate.
© 2009. Society of Petroleum Engineers
View full textPDF
(
346 KB
)
History
- Original manuscript received:
23 November 2007
- Meeting paper published:
4 March 2008
- Revised manuscript received:
2 April 2009
- Manuscript approved:
11 April 2009
- Published online:
29 October 2009
- Version of record:
11 May 2010
View Cart
