Asia Pacific

By Mark Plummer MSc BEng

In March, 2017 ISO released their Latest Well Integrity Standard, ISO 16530-1: Life Cycle Governance. In this article I will provide the background to the standard and discuss some of the key sections contained within.

BACKGROUND TO ISO 16530-1

1. 1. It was developed by producing operating companies for oil and gas, and is intended for use in the petroleum and natural gas industry worldwide

2. 2. It is intended to provide guidance to the Well Operator on managing well integrity throughout the well life cycle. Furthermore, it addresses the minimum compliance requirements for the well operator to claim conformity with ISO 16530-1

3. 3. It provides recommendations and techniques that well operators can apply in a scalable manner, based on a well’s specific risk characteristics

4. 4. ISO 16530-1 is intended to compliment the 2014 issued ISO 16530-2 Technical Standard (TS) – Well Integrity for the Operational Phase, which is intended to provide the requirements to manage Well Integrity during the operation (production) phase only.

5. 5. The standard is not applicable to:

• • Well control activities implemented to prevent or mitigate unintentional release of formation fluids from the well to its surroundings.
  • Wellbore integrity, sometimes referred to as “borehole stability”

KEY SECTIONS OF ISO 16530-1

All well life cycle phases have common elements, methods and processes, which are integral to well integrity management. ISO 16530-1 identifies and discusses key considerations for 12 common elements, as detailed in the figure above.

Assuring well integrity comprises two main building blocks: the first is to ensure well integrity during well design and construction, and the second is to manage well integrity throughout the remaining well life thereafter ISO 16530-1 addresses the six phases of the well life cycle, and their interrelationships, as illustrated above.

This month’s video demonstrates how certainty allows for better and faster decision making and evaluate the tubing conditions of multiple sub-sea completed wells pre-abandonment.

EV was requested by a global operator to perform a multi well campaign. EV’s Optis HD Electric line camera was used to inspect the tubing conditions of multiple sub-sea completed wells pre-abandonment.

Maintaining and increasing production volumes from existing wells and facilities is a major priority for operators in the Asia Pacific. The region suffers from a 10% annual decline in recovery, 80% of the basin’s fields are operating in the brownfield phase and a huge volume of well stock (40%-50%) is currently shut in and not
producing.

Globally there has also been a 25% increase in the abandonment of existing wells (Almukhaitah et al, Fonoiki 2013) and a 65% decline in the oil price, resulting in a huge cut in CAPEX for new field development (U.S. Energy Information Administration EICA 2015).

An interview with Erik Dietrichson, Manager – Eastern Region Well Intervention Service, FMC Technologies

Perspectives and development of the RLWI business

Riserless Light Well Intervention or RLWI – is the term used to describe the method for performing inspection and maintenance of subsea wells from a monohull vessel by sluicing a toolstring suspended in a wireline into the subsea well under full pressure, but without using a high pressure riser. RLWI is a cost efficient method as it can be performed from monohull vessels rather than costly drilling rigs. Wireline operations are used to perform production logging by measuring the locations of liquid in-flow and water content, to install a plug to isolate intervals with high inflow of reservoir water and to re-perforate the well casing by use of explosives to establish a new production interval at a higher level. It is also possible to increase the production rate from a well by removing scale growth that will reduce the well’s flow area. Another routine operation is to install a so-called insert-down-hole-safety-valve, to replace the function of the initially installed safety valve.

Fishing is often a complex operation that can require more than a single run due to partial recovery of the fish or discovery of unexpected conditions.

This month’s video is a succession of clips recorded with EV’s Slickline Memory camera where a customer in South East Asia progressed through their recovery operation, progressively understanding the exact conditions throughout the different stages.

No special preparation was required as the jobs were run in a dry gas environment.

After a first run that accurately identified the top of wire, a wire cutter was run in hole and held up at an unexpected depth. The pin had to be sheared to release the cutter and the next camera run identified a slickline bird nest.

With this information, a significant amount of slickline was recovered and another camera was run to assess the results. The new top of fish, a slickline fishing head is clearly seen, followed by the top of a sidewall cutter.

After latching onto the sidewall cutter, another camera is run. This time, the sidewall cutter is found centred, which allowed the correct selection of fishing tools.

On recovering the sidewall cutter, another camera was run to check the condition of the wire below it. The last segment of video shows yet another slickline bird nest.

After multiple runs and several days, the customer successfully concluded the operation relying throughout on EV’s Slickline Memory Camera, a battery powered optical camera that records up to 5 hours of HD colour video images at 30 frames per second. Acquisition, as in this case, can be continuous; however the tools can also be programmed to record as many as 60 segments, an efficient and cost effective solution to diagnosing complex or changing downhole conditions over an extended period of time.