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SPEAKER
Gerry Boyer P. Eng. – Biography
Gerry graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and he is a P.Eng. with APEGA. He has been employed in Canada, Siberia and the Sahara desert.
The main petroleum areas that Gerry has addressed are; production, exploitation, drilling and completions. Gerry has also worked in pipelines, facilities, HSE and has had a number of senior management and executive roles in industry.
Gerry spent nearly 6 years at the ERCB / AER as a senior advisor in well operations and he is now consulting in semi-retirement. His primary area of interest is well integrity and one of his clients is InnoTech Alberta.
ABSTRACT
Alberta has roughly 40,000 leaking wells, approximately 90,000 inactive wells that need to be decommissioned / abandoned and another 100,000 marginal wells that will be inactive in the next few years.
Traditional remedial cementing methods to repair wells with SCVF or GM is very expensive due to the multiple attempts that are often required. It is extraordinarily difficult to place cement slurry into small pathways where gas can flow. The AER has data that indicates about 17% of wells that are remedially cemented before abandonment end up leaking again.
Canadian service companies are exceptionally innovative and there are about ten alternatives to traditional remedial cementing for restoring hydraulic isolation in a well bore. A few producers have reported excellent results when using alternative products. InnoTech has estimated that billions of dollars may be saved by using advanced methods and alternate products in well decommissioning and abandonment and with a reduction in the number of well interventions during well remediation.
Industry is reluctant to use these alternatives for several reasons. Money is tight and producers want proven and cost effective solutions which are acceptable to the AER for repairing wells and for decommissioning / abandoning wells.
Before the AER will accept the use of alternative products, successful laboratory testing must be completed along with proven field pilots.
InnoTech Alberta has communicated with the AER and is currently testing one alternative product in accordance with AER expectations.
A joint industry partnership (JIP) is proposed to further advance laboratory testing to meet AER expectations and to test and assess as many alternative alternative products as possible.
InnoTech has secured seed funds for the JIP. InnoTech is also communicating with industry and with Canadian and International industry organizations to fund the JIP. The InnoTech funds must be matched with industry contributions for the JIP to proceed.
The JIP is intended to be aligned as much as possible with the WIA-NRCan Technology Roadmap to Improve Well Integrity, and with recent drafts of ESC IRP 26 (well remediation), IRP 27 (well decommissioning), the draft ESC guide for alternative products and with other initiatives in this space.
The objective is to reduce costs and improve outcomes.
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