This presentation covers the life cycle issues around water management for the upstream industry, with a focus on tools, strategies and ideas on how to reduce risk, cost and liability.

The development of commercial-scale projects has been a strategic process across multiple phases leading to a succession of projects of increasing scale in the Central United States. Four major carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in Decatur, Illinois and Terra Haute, Indiana exemplify the strategic pathway defined more than a decade ago by the U.S. Department of Energy – National Technology Laboratory (US DOE).

Critical drilling issues are usually associated with convergence of pore and fracture pressure, and are intimately connected to the downhole behavior of drilling fluids and uncertainties associated with predicting their behavior during well construction. This presentation will highlight how drilling fluids affect uncertainties in pressure estimates and present strategies to quantify and overcome deficiencies.

Investigation of past incidents always reveal deficiencies that are not directly equipment-related, but may be non-technical in nature, such as procedural deviation, inadequate communication etc. Past risk assessment models only provide semi-quantitative approaches to incorporate them in the risk assessment and cannot capture their dynamic nature and dependency in a single model. Current research takes up the challenge of developing a framework and step-by-step methodology for quantitatively merging technical, operational, human and organizational factors contributing to the cumulative risk of a barrier failure. It also addresses their dynamic changes with time, considers their interactions with each other and incorporates the uncertainty of parameter estimation to assess the cumulative risk in a facility.

Horizontals, Multi-zone, Openhole Packers, Barefoot, ICDs, ICVs, Frac Valves, Plug and Perf, Unconventional – Why are there so many lower completion types? There is a better way – all lower completions could be redesigned as a two-trip and intervention capable system.

Presented by Dr. Ding Zhu