This annual event continues to be one of SPE Canada’s most popular technical sessions. This year, In addition to the Thermal Well Integrity topics we have had in the past we will also be adding in Unconventional Well Integrity challenges faced in the shale gas and tight oil areas.
A properly designed and maintained well is essential in order to prevent the uncontrolled release of formation fluids throughout the entire life cycle of a well from initial drilling design and operations to abandonment. Effective long term well integrity must be maintained in order to safeguard workers, communities and the environment. The oil and gas projects that we are all involved with require considerable capital and operating expenditure in order to provide a good return on investment especially during the commodity prices we have seen lately.
Good well design and construction takes into account an inordinate list of considerations including casing/tubular and connection design, liner and sand control design, understanding of the formations we are drilling into and the drilling practices, geo-mechanical considerations, cementing, various operating pressure and temperature variations over the life cycle, corrosion mitigation and casing integrity monitoring. There are also many Regulatory and Operational Standards which we all have to meet in order to ensure that we remain compliant and that we continue to operate in a safe and effective manner. We all are aware of circumstances where a key critical aspect of well integrity and design or monitoring has not been thought of or considered and wellbore remediation or abandonment may have been the only possible alternative. Through collaboration and sharing best practices, our industry will be better able to understand the various well integrity issues we face and how they can be prevented in the future.
I invite you to join with your fellow SPE members and industry experts at the 2021 Symposium in order to share, learn and gain knowledge from a wide range of topics related to Life Long Well Integrity and Design.