Strengthening Well Abandonment Process Through Well Retirement AI Digital Advisor

Abstract The Operator manages a diversified and dynamic portfolio with thousands of wells. As the production methods evolve from naturally flowing to improved and enhanced oil recovery methods, artificial lift, unconventional and sour hydrocarbon reservoirs, the wells stock is continuously exposed to a changing spectrum of operational conditions that will eventually have an impact on the expected wells’ life span. The safe retirement of wells at the end of lifecycle through proper Plugging & Abandonment (P&A) operations, along with drilling and commissioning of replacement wells, has a significant cost impact in the long term. From this perspective, the Operator implemented its one-of-a-kind, innovative well retirement digital advisory solution to forecast candidate wells for P&A based on advanced data analytics and automation. It is crucial to build a well-established workflow to simplify the well abandonment process to assure that no more value can be generated, or integrity cannot be restored. The well abandonment definition is related to remnant life, integrity, cost, and priority. The important components are reservoir health and well integrity. Digital advisor integrates reservoir simulation forecasts with the lifespan of wells based on production/injection, long-term profile and economic value. The system automates the ranking of well integrity candidates which are not fully in compliance with integrity management standards. Risk assessment is embedded in the advisor by defining the business impact of the wells. Data is automatically captured by predefined schedules from instrumentation and flat files, and operational data storage under relational database management systems. This well retirement advisor provides a deterministic retirement candidates list, assuming each well's lifetime of 25 years from well spud date. It enables fast identification of P&A candidate wells based on reservoir health considerations. The time optimized list is updated with well integrity data statistics and forecasts. The approach has been tested in a mature oil field that has more than 800 wells and successfully identified the prioritized list of well retirement candidates. It provided a solid and consistent basis for the long-term projections of P&A candidate wells. This advisory system helps to meet production targets through on-time replacement wells. This application has the potential to reduce OPEX cost through reduction of suspended well in the asset. It helps to proactively prepare for the well abandonment phase. Data availability and quality is critical for the successful implementation of applications such as the Well Retirement Advisor.