<p>Alberta is known to be a significant Oil &amp; Gas producer with over 600,000 wells drilled in the province since the beginning of the twentieth century. &nbsp;While the majority of these wells were drilled to produce oil, approximately 175,000 gas wells can be found in Alberta. This represents a more than six-fold increase over Alberta’s western neighbor, British Columbia, which is known to be a primarily gas producing province. Over 75% of the gas wells in Alberta have yet to enter the abandonment stage. A growing stock of suspended wells can be found in the province which comes with an increase in liability for all parties involved –i.e., the operators, the provincial regulator and the Orphan Well Association. Here we analyze abandonment trends in Alberta, showing that combining the growing suspended well stock with the shorter lifetime associated with the horizontal gas wells currently being drilled in the province, we can expect a wave of abandonments in the coming decades. We focus only on gas wells, where we can make a comparison with a similar study previously conducted for wells in British Columbia. Although parts of Alberta are geologically similar and regulatory differences are minimal, we uncover interesting differences in the data.</p>

Plug and Abandonment Trends in Albertan Gas Wells

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/OMAE/OMAE2021/volume/85116

OMAE 2021

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