Abstract
Despite advances in cementing technology, annulus integrity is one of the major challenges facing the industry, both in terms of frequency and impact. Using tailored solutions for cementing a well is of great importance in oil and gas wells to secure an optimal annular barrier in complex conditions when traditional techniques done with single stage cementing are not sufficient. High-performance multistage cementing solutions are used to provide flexibility to operators to solve their new challenges and go beyond the conventional cementing techniques.
Operating in the Norwegian Martin Linge field, near the border to the UK sector in the northern part of the North Sea, with a target of deep gas formations brings additional challenges. When encountering shallow oil-bearing formations that require annular production barriers in conjunction with adjacent formations that have shown a propensity for breaking down during conventional cementing, choosing a solution that maximizes annular seal integrity and overcomes the shortcomings of previous stage cementing technology is a must have.
Even if possible, through conventional single stage cementing, to mitigate losses, the length of the section still posed significant risk to meet the overall objectives. A subsequent second stage cement job allowed the operator to avoid any additional intervention work to remediate poor isolation from primary jobs allowing them to deliver the well on time and on budget.
Therefore, this paper demonstrates how through risk identification, job planning and the selection of effective gas-tight multistage stage cementing tools, the enhancement of well safety and integrity can be achieved across multiple wells to ensure barrier objectives are met and future production can be optimized.
