Comparative Analysis of Permanent P & A Requirements and Consequences in Terms of Leakage - A Case Study

In South America, the discussion regarding permanent plug and abandonment (P&A) at the end of the useful life of the fields is relatively recent, but it has become increasingly important due to the maturity of certain oil fields. In Brazil, for example, the Campos, Santos and Espirito Santos Basins alone have 350 temporarily abandoned wells that should be abandoned in the coming decade. The long-term integrity of the wells once plugged and abandoned is, however, not yet considered. There is a need to perform assessments of the risk of leakage, reviewing both the probability of failure of the well barrier elements and the possible magnitude of leakage rates should one or more well barriers be compromised. This article presents a quantitative risk assessment framework that can be used to analyze the probability of barrier failure and potential consequences in terms of leakage rates. Data of a real well is used to quantify the leakage rates after a hypothetic permanent plug and abandonment operation using as reference the plug and abandonment requirements in Brazil and Norway. For both cases, the leakage paths between the reservoir and the wellhead are studied and include: the leakage through bulk cement, cracks/fractures in well barriers elements (impermeable formations, plug, and annular cement) and the presence of micro-annuli. A stochastic framework, using Monte Carlo simulations, is used to propagate uncertainty, yielding probability distributions for leakage rates. As the leakage rates are also a function of time, an analysis considering time-dependent factors such as reservoir re-pressurization is also included. The leakage scenarios for the well is presented considering the P&A requirements included in resolution N 46 (issued by the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) in 2016), the guidelines for the abandonment of the Brazilian Petroleum Gas and Biofuels Institute (IBP) and NORSOK D-010. Some requirements, such as plug length and barrier verification methods, are different between these two guidelines. The results are discussed in relation to the P & A requirements and the effect on the total leakage rates for each well case.