Customer challenges
- Expro was approached by Centrica to review a leakage in the casing cement with formation fluid that had entered the annulus and created a salt plug
- During a routine bleed-off the annulus pressure dropped to 0 Psi, which illustrated that the annulus was blocked. This would have resulted in the well being shut in because of these integrity issues
- The customer was unable to bleed of the pressure built-up in the annulus and the consequences could have led to the casing collapsing
Expro Excellence
- Expro offered a bespoke solution to run WellSpring in the salt plug, displacing the annulus from the Zechstein formation fluid, replacing it with fresh water which would dissolve the salt plug
- Expro's WellSpring offers minimally intrusive equipment allowing the remediation of annular integrity issue without the use of a heavy workover rig. The alternative for the customer would have been using a workover rig and without this solution there was a high possibility that the casing would have collapsed
- The WellSpring displaced the annulus fluid while removing and measuring salt content. This operation was completed in four runs
- Communicating pressure to the reservoir was achieved after circulating fresh water on depth
- After circulating fresh water in the reservoir the annulus pressure was successfully restored
Value to client
- Expro is the only provider of this annular intervention service
- Without the requirement for a workover rig this significantly reduced the customers cost
- A bespoke solution was made for Centrica for this job and full scale testing was performed at our Expro base before mobilising offshore
- Increased oil recovery through the revitalisation of a well which would have been previously shut-in
