DecomWorld’s summit tackles deep-water and mature well abandonment

DecomWorld’s annual well abandonment summit will this year feature an unprecedented focus on the most difficult of well operations – those in deeper water and mature wells on the shelf.

With costs of decommissioning and abandonment shown to increase by as much as 400% in water depths greater than 200ft, this summit tackles the complex challenge of how to increase abandonment quality without increasing campaign expenditure.

The Deepwater & Mature Well Abandonment Summit 2014, to be held in December in Houston, offers the chance to better understand the core challenges with experiences shared by major operators such as Chevron and Anadarko.

Attendees will get the latest updates on how plugging and abandonment (P&A) guidelines will be implemented, along with an exclusive understanding of insurance gaps and previously unforeseen liabilities in mature well acquisitions.

There will also be an opportunity to learn from new planning strategies that promote innovation whilst securing high quality well isolation in P&A within current budgetary limitations.

Top industry expertise will be on hand to review critical technical topics, such as the implications of sustained casing pressure (SCP) on well abandonment, through to a review of plugging materials from portland cement to barite plugs and resins.

Keynote speakers

Confirmed keynote speakers include Mike Cowan, former senior advisor on fluids and cementing at Apache, Ryan Lee, well abandonment engineer at Chevron, and Steven Ashcraft, senior staff production engineer at Anadarko.

Also new for the 2014 summit is a unique insight into the Endeavour Management benchmarking study of decommissioning practises used in the Gulf of Mexico. Attendees will be able to review established operator techniques for well abandonment and assess impending opportunities for well campaign enhancement.

With the importance of securing high quality well P&A becoming more apparent into 2015, organizers believe the summit will be crucial in ensuring departments and companies are operating at their most effective as the new era of well abandonment activity dawns.