Course description
This course uses 4 online half-day modules to provide an in-depth introduction to well completions and interventions for the oil and gas industry. Constructing a well to safely deliver the expected economic value requires discipline engineers for completions, drilling and production facilities to work as a team to develop an optimized and integrated well design. Designing the completion and understanding the scope of well interventions requires awareness of how these integrate into the full scope of well engineering. The course takes us through the design, installation, operation and intervention phases of a well’s operating life. We focus on oil and gas producers, but also introduce some of the challenges in water injectors, CO2 injectors and geothermal wells.
We discuss how the data obtained from appraisal drilling and offset wells is combined with reservoir engineering studies to define the engineering requirements for the field development wells. These requirements allow us to build the conceptual well completion design, which needs thorough sense-checking with other disciplines. From the conceptual design, we then need focused technical assessments such as materials selection, stress analysis, sand control, well stimulation and nodal analysis to progress the design from concept to detail, maintaining the focus on optimising the commercial value (CAPEX, OPEX and Revenue) of the well completion within the project, HSEQ, budget and schedule requirements.
As design progresses, Project Management skills are needed to control concurrent activities such as procuring long-leads, selecting equipment and service suppliers and preparing for rig operations. We need skill and judgment to understand the consequence of the design decisions and their impact on project uncertainties to keep the project on schedule and to maintain visibility of a project risk register. Many well technologies are on offer, such as intelligent wells and multilaterals, giving the potential to improve well value, but with added complexity and demand more project management skills.
With the completion designed, equipment purchased, rig and services suppliers lined up, the course then looks at rig operations and well barrier diagrams during completion installation, which likely includes well interventions work and perhaps stimulation before production or injection commence.
With the well construction rig activity concluded, we look at the life of well, maintaining well integrity and the scope of well interventions for surveillance, repair and improvements.
We conclude the course by looking briefly at recent completions advances, such as gravel packing and fibre optic monitoring and interventions technologies such as eline tractors.
