Towards Net-Zero Emissions: mechanics, processes and materials to support risk-based well decommissioning

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The Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act became law on June 29th, 2021. A large part of the emissions focus has targeted industrial emissions, particularly from the hydrocarbon energy industry. Here we focus at oil and gas well emissions and those well operations that are performed to reduce or eliminate leakage. Permanent decommissioning of 1000's of wells occurs annually in Western Canada. Long term sealing of wellbores requires proper placement of sealing materials, avoidance of contamination/mixing and ensuring a good hydraulic bond of the cement to both steel and surrounding rock. Each of these are physically complex and difficult to predict and/or measure as they occur below surface. Industry best practices and regulatory requirements need to be based on scientific knowledge of the complex defining mechanics, the flow processes and materials performance, as well as on field-based data, measurement and monitoring. This project delivers the underlying knowledge as its objectives. The present project builds on a long-term collaboration among three Canadian universities and industrial partners (Phase I). Phase II builds on the success of Phase I and is aligned with knowledge gaps and policy issues identified by a consensus between industrial and regulatory players. The project uses infrastructure established in Phase I and addresses sub-projects in five complementary areas: (i) dump bailing & off-bottom plug placement, (ii) cleaning behind casing & squeeze cementing, (iii) well leakage, (iv) mechanics &materials, and (v) societal impacts and abandonment alternatives. Our team will conduct these interlinked studies, addressing well abandonment knowledge gaps while providing fundamental advances using combined experimental, analytical and computational methods, along with field survey work, data modelling. The overall aim is to develop understanding and tools that allow quantitative assessment of different practices. This allow the development of risk-based regulations and practices by industry and regulators.