Unconventional technology for sealing and P&A of wells for prevention of global environmental disasters

Abstract

Many, if not all of the oil and gas fields under development, have leaking wells. There are a lot of so-called abandoned, ownerless wells. Subsoil users, by one way or another, make efforts to eliminate leakage in such wells. At the same time there are no universal and reliable techniques. The problem of well leakage is seriously increasing when wells are decommissioned (plugged and abandoned, P&A), and even more so when the development of the field is finished. The techniques of plugging and abandonment do not guarantee the integrity of the abandoned wells for centuries. Obviously, then the abandoned field would become the object of a local ecological catastrophe. As the development of all oil and gas fields is completed, the Earth will enter the era of the Global Environmental Disasters. In this article authors propose innovative techniques and technical solutions for sealing procedures and plugging and abandonment operations on wells.