A market leading P&A company has expanded its geographic horizons into Alaska after a sharp upturn in demand for its revolutionary remedial barrier installation prompted the completion of 11 remedial cement barriers.

Developed to remove the bulky cost of the drilling rig or workover unit during well decommissioning, test deployment of HydraCT™ in 2021 showed excellent cement bonding with an ultrasonic cement evaluation tool and, on recovery of the casing, 100% cement fill up in the annulus was seen.

Since then, the method has provided an important springboard for growth into Alaska, with a total of 11 remedial cement barriers installed using HydraCT™ on the North Slope, predominantly using 2” coiled tubing at a depth of 4,500ft.  As part of the client’s verification process, six of the 11 cement plugs were drilled out and logged providing confidence for and acceptance by the State Regulator of the suitability of the installed barriers as final well abandonment barriers.

As well as optimising the operational aspects of plug and abandonment activities by removing the rig, design aspects are also optimised by using a bespoke Well Candidate Screening process incorporating CFD (computational fluid dynamics) modelling.

Commenting on the success of entry into the Alaskan market, Patrick Anderson Operations Manager said: 
“As part of HydraCT™ service delivery we go through a full selection process to identify the best tool set-up and system configuration based on the system and fluids available to deploy the tool and the environment within which the tool will be run. Verification of the design is provided by comparison to a large database of similar installed barriers as well as through CFD simulation in a representative digital twin.”

“HydraCT™ can revolutionise remedial barrier installation during slot recovery or well P&A activity. Installation costs can be halved by removing the requirement for a rig which has an added impact of reducing CO2 emissions by almost 80% per barrier installed.”

He added: “The jobs were delivered back-to-back in quick succession and the tools performed as required every run. We hope they will act as a solid foundation from which we can grow our presence in this important market.”

KeyFacts Energy Industry Directory: HydraWell