While continuing to pursue a multi-year campaign over the remediation of disused oil wells in federal land in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is starting to turn its attention to ensuring that disused wells within Alaska's oil fields are plugged and abandoned in a timely fashion.
AOGCC Chair Cathy Foerster has told Petroleum News that, bearing in mind the huge number of abandoned wells in the Lower 48, with nobody responsible for their closure, the commission wants to get ahead of the game, making sure that all disused wells in Alaska are appropriately closed off before they are eventually abandoned.
More companies operating
In the past, with just a few major oil companies operating Alaska's oil fields, the issue was more easily manageable, Foerster said.
"But now that we're getting small operators, and the big operators are selling their properties to the smaller operators, it's probably an appropriate time to start laying the groundwork, so that that doesn't become a problem," she said.
A couple of operators in Alaska went bankrupt last year, leaving wells that are abandoned but that do not have an operator with the financial wherewithal for remediation, she said.
Foerster said that the commission has already conducted discussions with BP, operator of the Prudhoe Bay field, and has determined with the company a list of wells that could usefully be plugged right away and another list of wells that would be better plugged later.
Following an evaluation of the results of its efforts with BP, the commission anticipates conducting a similar exercise with other operators and fields, with these discussions probably happening sometime next year.
"We're going to do this exercise with everybody," Foerster said. Foerster said she does not know how many wells might be impacted by the AOGCC program.
Need for caution
And the agency is sensitive to the need for caution, for not rushing into the closure of wells that might have some future utility. For example, had the commission insisted on the plugging and abandonment of disused in-field wells 25 or 30 years ago, the subsequent productive programs of coiled tubing drilling and the drilling of multilaterals might not have been possible. However, while some wells may be plugged in conjunction with the eventual decommissioning of fields, it does make sense to plug some wells right away, Foerster said.Moreover, with the possibility of exporting natural gas from the North Slope starting in 2025, oil well redevelopment not now on the horizon will probably not happen, she said.
"The timing just feels right for having those (well closure) discussions and deciding whether to exert pressure," Foerster said.
ConocoPhillips has procedures for dealing with defunct wells, company spokeswoman Natalie Lowman has told Petroleum News. ConocoPhillips operates the Kuparuk River and Alpine fields on the North Slope.
"In our normal course of business, we already have a thorough program in place to handle wells that have no future utility," Lowman commented in a Sept. 29 email.
NPR-A legacy wells
Meanwhile, the issues surrounding the remediation of legacy government wells on federal land in the NPR-A rumble on. Last winter the Bureau of Land Management continued a multi-year program to deal with the wells. But, as reported in the Alaska Dispatch News in May, two of the wells, the Iko Bay No. 1 well and the Simpson Core Test 26 well, were not properly plugged and require to be reworked.
Foerster told Petroleum News that BLM had not succeeded in demonstrating to AOGCC that fluids could not flow to the surface from the wells. Apparently, in addition to plugging the well with cement, it is necessary to conduct a pressure test, to verify the integrity of the seal. Moreover, the BLM contractor left the wells in a state that will render further work on the wells difficult she said.
"They created such additional problems that going back in and trying to address the original problem will be difficult and expensive, if not impossible," Foerster said.
In March AOGCC also issued BLM with a notice of violation for the Simpson well for failure to use required well control equipment and the subsequent flow of fluids to the surface.
According to the Alaska Dispatch News report, Bud Cribley, BLM state director in Alaska, has said that BLM is committed to satisfying AOGCC's concerns.