Dataset Information

Dataset of plugging and abandonment status from exploration wells drilled within the Troll gas and oil field in the Norwegian North Sea.

ABSTRACT: More than 750 wildcat wells have been drilled in the Norwegian North Sea since 1966. Some of these wells could pose a risk for the environment, climate, and future CO₂ and hydrogen storage projects by being potential leakage pathways for subsurface gases (mainly CH₄ and stored CO₂ and hydrogen). To ensure well integrity, these wells were secured by building cement plugs at crucial positions in the well path before abandoning the well. However, first 2004 the NORSOK d-010 standard defined strict regulation for plugging and abandonment (P&A) of gas and oil wells along the Norwegian continental margin. Here we report data relevant for the quality of a P&A work done on old exploration wells (1979 to 2003) from the Troll gas and oil field in the Norwegian North Sea. The data was extracted from public available well completion reports and the webpage of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. The dataset was analysed regarding their availability, plausibility and evaluated towards the present P&A regulations for offshore Norway. Based on twelve single criteria a final P&A score for 31 exploration wells was established, which may be applied to other abandoned wells in the Norwegian North Sea for further analyses. The resulting scores vary from -1 to 23.67 whereby lowest scores indicate wells where monitoring would be recommended. A P&A work evaluation is especially relevant in the Troll area as Norwegian large-scale CO₂ storage is planned close to this location.

SUBMITTER: Emmel B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8181855 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Orphaned oil and gas wells are unplugged nonproducing wells with no solvent owner of record to plug and mitigate them, such that the responsibility often falls on government agencies and the general public. Unplugged wells pose risks to the environment, climate, and human health. To develop a national framework to quantify the environmental benefits of plugging and optimize mitigation, we analyze oil and gas well data from state agencies across the United States to estimate the number of documented orphaned wells over time and evaluate their attributes. We find at least 81,857 documented orphaned wells as of September 2021 and 123,318 as of April 2022, representing 2% and 3%, respectively, of all estimated abandoned wells in the United States. We identify at least 20,286 potentially documented orphaned wells as of September 2021 (0.5% of all estimated abandoned wells in the country), of which 8% became documented orphaned wells as of April 2022. We estimate annual methane emissions to average 0.016 ± 0.001 MMt of CH4 for the 123,318 documented orphaned wells as of April 2022, corresponding to 5-6% of the total methane emissions estimated by the U.S. EPA for all abandoned wells. Although well type (i.e., oil vs gas) is generally available (83% of the 81,857 documented orphaned wells as of September 2021), only 49% and 16% of the wells have information on depth and last production date, respectively. Overall, documented orphaned wells and their attributes, including location, well type, depth, and last production date, require additional characterization and studies to constrain the uncertainties. Nevertheless, our identification and analysis of documented orphaned wells represent the first steps toward characterizing the full set of wells eligible to be plugged and remediated with the federal funding available in the U.S. via the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Our results can also be useful for the management of the hundreds of thousands, potentially a million, undocumented orphaned wells likely to exist across the nation.

Project description:Using abandoned gas wells as geothermal resources for energy production is an effective way to extract geothermal energy from geological formations. These abandoned wells have the potential to significantly contribute in the rising global demand for energy without requiring the land disruption resulting from deep drilling or digging, processes necessary for energy extraction from geological formations via more traditional methods. In this paper, a method to extract geothermal energy from abandoned gas wells is proposed. The method offers an efficient, economical, and environmentally-conscious way to generate electricity. A mathematical model of a thermal and hydraulic coupling process is constructed, and a 3D numerical model is generated to study the process of geothermal energy extraction by retrofitting an abandoned gas reservoir into a geothermal reservoir. Using the model, heat extraction and fluid flow are analyzed over a period of 50 years. The heat production, electricity generation, and thermal recovery over the lifetime of the reservoir indicate that a commercially viable geothermal dual well system can produce geothermal energy effectively. Dual-well systems contain at least one injection well and one production well. They are composed of a two-way flow system in which the fluid flows into the reservoir via an injection well and returns from the production well having absorbed thermal energy from the surrounding rocks. Sensitivity analysis of the main parameters controlling the average outlet temperature of the fluid from the sedimentary geothermal system reveals that abandoned gas wells are a suitable source of geothermal energy. This energy can be harvested via a method whose use of reservoir fluids differs from that of the traditional method of closed-loop circulation via a borehole heat exchanger. Here, it is demonstrated that abandoned oil and gas fields can be repurposed to be geothermal energy sources that provide low-cost electricity and are economically sustainable.

Dataset Information

Dataset of plugging and abandonment status from exploration wells drilled within the Troll gas and oil field in the Norwegian North Sea.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets