D1.2 Report on the current site abandonment methodologies in relevant industries

Executive Summary

Site abandonment of oil and gas fields is described and defined as the activity of the operator to close and leave a site according to safety and environmental requirements. It can generally be divided into two main activities, i) the abandonment of the wellbores drilled during operation, including plugging of wells, and ii) the removal of surface installations (e.g. well equipment, production tanks and associated installations) and surface remediation.
This report provides an overview of current practices in relevant industries, mainly from the oil and gas industry. In site closure operations, well abandonment and ensuring long-term integrity of wellbores are considered very important in terms of secure geological storage of reactive substances. Therefore, the major goal of this report is to highlight main issues in current well abandonment procedures in CO2 environments and particularly in geological CO2 storage.
Additionally, recommendations and guidelines for future activities are provided, since the potential for subsequent alternative utilisation of oil and gas fields is not generally considered at the time of abandonment. This might lead to important issues when a field is being considered for subsequent geological storage of CO2.
Chapter 1 describes the scope of the report and introduces the general aspects of site abandonment. Current site abandonment methodologies in relevant industries are summarised in Chapter 2. This provides the basis for an overview of permanent well abandonment (activities) with respect to acid gas disposal, which is summarised in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 presents the best practice for the abandonment of CO2 storage sites, and is followed by recommendations for future abandonment activities and regulations in Chapter 5.

OPEN ACCESS - DOI: 10.2312/GFZ.CO2CARE_D1.2
 

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