In the oil and gas industry, effective well barriers provide peace of mind to ensure operational safety. These barriers exist as a protective layer, preventing formation fluids from flowing into the wellbore, another formation, or the environment. If barriers are breached, the well can no longer be counted on to operate as designed and the operator must adapt to manage the risks.
Well barrier management is the process behind the design, implementation, and maintenance of barriers and is an essential part of the oil and gas industry. The more effective a well barrier is at doing its job, the longer a well can operate unimpeded. Unfortunately, the long-trusted status quo methods for ensuring well barrier integrity are not up to the task. Here’s why these approaches leave a lot to be desired, and why integrated solutions are much more reliable and effective.
Why Traditional Well Barrier Management Falls Short
The term “well barrier management”, as mentioned previously, encapsulates a complex multistep process. Companies must identify the type of well barriers needed, then design, implement, validate, and maintain barrier health from commissioning through plug and abandonment (P&A).
While regulatory bodies establish baseline requirements, much of how the process is carried out remains largely undefined. Without further guidance, companies may develop a variety of unique, non-standard approaches for each phase of the well’s lifecycle.
During the design phase of a well, a company could choose between several generic drawing tools to produce a wellbore schematic with all required barriers. However, this generic program approach requires tedious effort and does not always produce an accurate representation of all components in place. IPT Global’s SureTec® WellSchematic solution was built to solve this exact problem, generating an accurate, standardized schematic without the manual rework generic tools require. That schematic then acts as a single source of truth, updated throughout the well’s lifecycle as barriers are added, tested, and validated, rather than a static drawing that falls out of date the moment conditions change.
And after the design stage is completed, the operational stage inevitably brings changes to the plan. Many companies rely on spreadsheets to track changes and tasks, store important data points, and generate reports. Much like a generic drawing tool, however, spreadsheets aren’t built specifically for well barrier management. They lack integration with other steps in the management process and require time and effort to customize completely.
While there are dedicated standalone tools for specific phases of well barrier management, these tools, just like spreadsheets, fall short in the area of integration. Using separate tools for every step creates a challenge when it comes to reliably transferring information and efficiently moving the process along. An integrated and standardized solution for well integrity management, on the other hand, ensures a streamlined flow of data and consistency in all phases.
How IPT Global is Advancing Well Barrier Management
If there’s one word to describe IPT Global’s well barrier management solution, it is comprehensive. Built on our SureTec platform, IPT Global’s software solutions and support team form a complete end-to-end package for every stage of the barrier lifecycle, from design to validation to maintenance.
Every IPT Global solution is integrated, ensuring the tools and applications you use in multiple phases are working from the same data. That integration also enables IPT Global’s well integrity specialists to assist your team throughout the process, providing consultation, training, 24/7 support, and more.
Well barrier management doesn’t have to rely on disconnected tools and manual workarounds. Contact us to learn how IPT Global can support every aspect of well barrier management, from design through P&A.
