OIL & GAS WELL PLUGGING AND ABANDONMENT

Oil and gas well plugging and abandonment (P&A) is a process for permanently closing inactive or non-producing wells in a safe and environmentally responsible manner.  This process aims to mitigate potential risks of groundwater contamination or the uncontrolled release of hydrocarbons and other harmful substances into surface waters or the atmosphere.  Hand in hand with P&A of the well itself, decommissioning of associated facilities such as gathering lines, separators, tanks, and buildings are equally important to address.  Proper P&A services are essential for operators, regulators, landowners, and the public to ensure that nonproducing wells no longer pose a threat to public health, safety, or the environment.

Sandberg Consulting specializes in overall project and construction management of P&A projects.  Whether it's a whole project from start to finish, or certain aspects that you would like us to manage, we can take care of it for you.  We have over 10 years of experience in P&A, including multiple rig programs for large global operators, regional operators, regulators, and individual landowners.  More recent efforts have been focused on supporting the growing number of P&A projects of orphaned and abandoned wells across the United States.  

With over 20 years of experience in project management on environmental, oil & gas, and construction projects, we can break a project down into manageable components while keeping in mind the bigger picture, goals, and objectives.  Below are summaries of P&A project components. 

Site reconnaissance not only gives us an initial look at the condition of the site and well itself, but also the lay of the land that may present access, permitting, and construction challenges.   It's a chance to conduct early engagement with stakeholders such as landowners, regulatory agencies, and local municipalities to begin outlining the aspects of the project planning stage.  In some instances, this step includes locating the wells themselves based upon old lease or farm maps, regulatory agency records, or landowner information.  By identifying unique factors and challenges of the project early on during site reconnaissance, the project team is better poised to manage risk and develop a realistic scope, schedule, budget.  

Managing communication and relationships with landowners is crucial.  Early engagement aids in developing plans for construction, P&A execution, and site restoration.  In some cases, multiple landowners are involved in different aspects of a project.  By keeping the landowners' perspectives and concerns aligned with the overall project objectives, you have not only strengthened the successful outcome of the project, but also strengthened all stakeholders' reputations.

Access and site construction are the foundation of project execution on the ground.  By understanding the limitations and challenges of access and construction early on, a fit for purpose plan for road transport permitting, infrastructure crossing, overhead obstacles, site work, equipment and restoration can be developed.  We not only do a thorough review of these challenges to avoid surprises, but also to help balance cost, quality, schedule, and safety, and minimize impacts to the public, land, and environment. 

Navigating the regulatory landscape to secure all necessary permits for transportation, environmental, construction, and well P&A can be challenging.  By doing a thorough review of what is required ahead of time and understanding the impact on cost and schedule, our project team can avoid surprises, fines, and delays. 

Working together with local, state, and federal agencies to ensure compliance with regulations will help minimize project risks and delays.  Regulators are part of the overall stakeholder team on a project and are crucial to delivering a successful project on time and on budget.  We aim to understand regulators expectations with regards to requirements, deliverables, and communications early on in the planning stage.

Managing a project budget can be challenging.  From the early planning stages to the execution stages and closeout, we analyze costs, forecast expenses, and identify potential savings. We work closely with clients to maintain financial transparency and ensure projects are completed within budget.  By closely tracking costs throughout the project, we are also gathering data that will help give insight to similar projects in the future.  Let us handle the numbers while you focus on your goals and objectives.

Logistics can be a challenge.  Planning and then coordinating the movement of materials, equipment, and personnel to ensure timely and cost effective project execution while minimizing disruptions is key to a project's success.  If you cannot execute efficiently, all the planning in the world will not mean anything.

Developing detailed plans for well plugging operations and offering expert downhole consulting to ensure safe and effective abandonment practices are key to P&A projects.  Whether it's working with our client's plugging plan or developing a plan with regulators and contractors, we know how important navigating the downhole plugging process is.  Well plugging is often mistakenly viewed as the final stage where cement is placed across the production zones to seal them off permanently.  While this is an important step in the process, there are a lot of other factors and operations that need to take place before we reach that stage.  Understanding the implications of downhole decisions during cleanout, casing removal, perforating, etc. can help avoid "point of no return" scenarios where a drill out and re-plug will be required.   It is often quoted in the industry that well plugging is both an art and a science.

Communication is another foundation of project management.  Providing clear, accurate, and timely communications and reports on project status, compliance, and performance to stakeholders and regulatory agencies help keep everyone aligned on progress and aid in addressing challenges as early as possible.  Keeping everyone informed and engaged strengthens the project team and chance of a successful outcome.

Project closeout can often be overlooked.  In our view, project closeout starts early on in the project by ensuring all project deliverables are met on time, documentation is completed and filed, and final inspections and approvals are conducted.   With contractors, completion milestone documents are utilized to document contract obligations and final punch list items before liability and final payment is released.  These actions leave the project in a compliant and secure state for all stakeholders involved.