SwarfPak On/Offshore Pilot .

Offentlig prosjektsammendrag

SwarfPak - a new generation milling technology. A technology that promises a significant breakthrough in milling efficiency, cost savings and well safety. The SwarfPak technology is especially suited for Plug and Abandonment (P & A) operations and Slot Recovery operations. Drilling of wells in the underground is done to extract oil and gas. Casing is being installed along the well path to prevent the formation from collapsing into the wellbore and to create barriers between the different formation layers to avoid leakage of formation fluid back to the surface. At many occasions there is a need to remove parts of the casing when re-using parts of the upper wellbore to drill a new wellbore (so-called sidetrack). This casing removal operation which is a preparation for the sidetrack is called Slot Recovery. When a well is decided to not be used any more (Abandoned), it needs to be secured to prevent leakage to surface of formation fluid from pressurized reservoir sections. This is being controlled through removal of several sections of casing (typically 50 m sections), and afterwards these sections are being plugged permanently through use of cement or other sealing resins (P & A). It is a well-known fact that the P & A budgets set aside by the oil companies over the years have turned out to be a lot less than the actual costs of a P & A operation. There is therefore an imminent and urgent need for new technologies and principles that can greatly reduce these costs and help bringing the oil companies back on budget and back on track. SwarfPak will make P & A (and Slot Recovery) operations more efficient, avoid repair costs of BOP etc, and also eliminate deposition, handling and logistics cost of milling swarf. Through these cost reductions the SwarfPak goal of reducing costs in P & A operations by 50 % or more is clearly within reach. On top of this the HMS and environmental improvements the SwarfPak technology will bring are substantial.