More Than Thirty Years of Innovative Thought and Accelerated Results

31 August–5 September 2014

Cannes, France

Application
Deadline:
15 June
Chairperson:
Keith Lewis
An Ounce of Prevention: 2014

Shell
Maintaining Well Control
Committee: Barriers Under Any Condition
Jan Brakel
Understanding pressure and pressure relationships is the key to safe well control. Yet, to date, the primary focus
Shell
of well control has centred on recovery rather than prevention. Incidents related to loss of well control largely
Richard Dyve Jones occur when the primary barrier, hydrostatic pressure from the drilling fluid, fails to prevent an influx; thus requiring
Statoil the secondary barrier, closing of the BOPs, to engage in order stop the breach from becoming a full-blown, well
control incident.
Andrew Grisdale
Maersk Influxes occur, most often, during the tripping operation where the swab effect lowers the bottomhole pressure below
the formation’s pressure and can be commonly misidentified when “wellbore breathing,” nuisances gases, or cement
Ashley Johnson setting are involved. Influxes can also occur when drilling into unexpected, higher-pressure zones.
Schlumberger Gould
Research The unholy trinity of unknown pore pressure, unknown barrier conditions, and failure to diagnose an influx can
converge into a significant cost impact at any time during the life cycle of the well and, in a worst-case scenario,
Randy Lovorn culminate in tragic consequences.
Halliburton
The challenge for the future is that we should be able to go onto any operational rig and have the confidence to
Raúl Navarro-Mascarell expect everyone involved in the operation to identify what minimum two barriers are in place at that time and
Halliburton – Baroid what verification they have. This should be the expected norm with the demand for drilling in increasingly sensitive
locations with higher-risk wells (HP/HT and deepwater).
Kris Ravi
Halliburton This forum will address these issues and the current deficiencies in defining and maintaining wellbore barriers during the
entire life cycle of the well—from spud to abandonment—and will discuss the gaps in the technical, human, process, and
Patrick Reilly technology aspects of ensuring that wells are drilled to the highest and most consistent standards of safety.
ConocoPhillips
The forum will look at the full well life cycle of barriers in different drilling environments (Onshore/Offshore) under
Floris Strijbos different scenarios such as:
Shell • Drilling (Conventional, Underbalanced, Managed • Fishing
Pressure, Mud Cap, Dual Gradient, etc.) • Workover
Colin Stuart
• Tripping • Redevelopment
Stuart Wright PTE LTD
• Cementing • Abandonment
Mel Whitby
Cameron Who Should Participate
The forum is a limited-attendance meeting for up to 75 people and is designed for professionals in the oil and gas
industry who are interested in well control barriers.
FSIC Liaisons: The forum is aimed at people whose principal job falls into any of the following categories:
• Well Engineers, Specialists, and Managers • Research and Development Managers
Paul Francis
• Well Product Line Managers • Petroleum Engineers and Managers
MI-SWACO
• Rig Manufacturers and Designers • QHSE Professionals
David White • Production Technologists and Managers • Academics
Schlumberger Gould • Well Technology Engineers and Managers • Safety Regulators
Research
Inspire the Development of New Technology
You have a role to play in meeting the challenges of tomorrow head on.
Go to www.spe.org/events/14fse1 and apply today.

An Ounce of Prevention: Maintaining Well
Control Barriers Under Any Condition
These exciting topics will be discussed in an open setting designed for optimal input
from all participants.
Session 1
Barriers Through the Life Cycle of the Well? What Has Been
the Industry’s Experience Over the Past 10 Years? Why
Have Barriers Failed in Well Control Situations?
Session Managers: Keith Lewis and Richard Dyve Jones
Many well control incidents are either directly or indirectly related to barrier
failure. The historical consequence has in a few cases been significant and
shaped public perception of the industry. Loss of life, significant injury, and
negative environmental impact are unacceptable; the industry must get
barrier management right every time.
Reestablishing the correct level of risk-mitigating measures following a
significant well control incident is challenging, and it is easy to adopt a default
position where mitigating measures required for the worst-case scenario is
considered to be the norm for all cases, even when the well falls into a lower-
risk category. If the industry fails to demonstrate that it can effectively manage
risk, then significant additional investment in well design, construction, and
response measures will be required.
How do we demonstrate that our industry can effectively manage risk and
that it has control over its well barriers at all times? If we fail to do this, the
consequence will be a high-cost environment that may delay or terminate
future projects and pose a serious risk to industry’s license to operate.
Is there a future role for advanced technology development to provide
tools and processes that will provide comfort to practitioners and key
stakeholders that now and in the future will ensure we can get it right
every time?
Session 2
What Are the Unknowns in the Life Cycle of a Well? (Risks)
Session Managers: Randy Lovorn, Floris Strijbos, and
Kris Ravi
As we take projects from conception to abandonment, the pressure regions
and stress state often become operational risk as the project evolves through
its life cycle. Typically, barriers are designed in the well construction phase of
a project, but do we, at this stage of a project, consider how the engineered
and geomechanical barriers evolve through the well life cycle up to and
beyond abandonment?
In this session we will explore if the geoscience and engineering disciplines
maintain sufficient involvement and share a common understanding of risk
and uncertainty as the well progresses from construction, completions,
production, and through abandonment. This session will challenge you with
the following topics, which also lead into the following sessions:
What are your design assumptions based on? How do we mitigate risk?
Are we training staff to understand risk during the design of the well and
the changes in the risk profile during well execution and as a result of the
information observed and gathered? What technologies will help us improve
our predictions? Are we using the tools and technologies available to us today?
What future technologies will help to better understand and mitigate risk? Is
there sufficient knowledge transfer and dialogue (integration) between well
engineers, geoscientists, and drilling contractors? Is it just a case of working
better together or do we need improved tools?
31 August–5 September 2014
Cannes, France
Session 3
Understanding the ‘Barrier System’
Session Managers: Pat Reilly and Andrew Grisdale
Mechanical and hydraulic (i.e., physical) barriers are components of a larger
‘Barrier System,’ which includes physical barriers, processes for barrier
management, and people who are accountable for the barriers. All three
components are key to ensuring barriers perform as expected.
What are the characteristics of an ideal physical barrier? What does a
comprehensive and reliable barrier management process look like? What are
the barriers during each stage of well life? Who owns and is accountable for
the barriers during each stage of well life?
The system is totally dependent on people. How are we training our staff?
This is a human factor-critical system. How can we provide assurance that the
system is robust at all times?
This session will examine the complete ‘Barrier System’ and how the 3
component parts work together to ensure the well is under control from
drilling to abandonment. This session will then investigate the ‘People’
component in more detail. Session 4 will follow up with a focused look at
Process and Technology (Physical Barriers).
Session 4
Barriers. Where Are We Now? (Technology and Process)
Session Managers: Colin Stuart and Richard Dyve Jones
The industry has been drilling exploration and development wells for
decades. Well barrier technology has evolved over the years to cater to more
challenging drilling environments. Are well designs taking into consideration
well barrier robustness for the full life cycle of the well?
Where is the historical database on the long-term performance of these
barriers? How do we determine if these barriers are fit for purpose and how
does the industry develop its research and development plans for barrier
technology without a long-term view on barrier performance?
How are we monitoring these barriers after the well is brought on stream and
how do we feed back the information on barrier performance throughout
the life cycle of the well, from both the drilling and production phases, to the
engineers that design the well and the companies that work on improved
barrier technologies?
What is plan B in case of a barrier failure during production and how quickly
will your asset team know this? How do we cater to the challenges of the future
taking into consideration the extremes of high-pressure, high-temperature
wells and unconventional well manufacturing challenges?
How are we as an industry monitoring barrier failures now, is it just based on
blowout statistics, and how can we improve that to drive more innovation and
improved barrier performance in the future? Could we have a consolidated
barrier performance industry database, in the same way we have a worldwide
cost performance database for drilling?
This session will focus on measuring the long-term reliability of barriers and
discuss how to gather and disseminate this information to improve barrier
technology for the future.

Session 5
Hydraulic Barriers
Session Managers: Ashley Johnson, Kris Ravi, and
Raul Navarro
In principle, a hydraulic barrier is durable and reliable. If the well is full of a
static fluid of known and consistent density, then the bottomhole pressure
is predictable with a high level of confidence. Unfortunately, perturbations
to this system will have significant effects on the pressures. The simplest
changes of just turning the pumps on will first have to yield any gelled fluid
(pressure pulse) then counter the effects of friction to circulate the fluid.
More complex situations occur where we have multiple fluids (miscible or
immiscible) of different density in the hole, from just a mud rollover up to
the complexities of a kick with influx, which may have variable levels of
solubility in the other fluids in the well. In the more complex situations,
we want to displace the drilling fluid with a cement slurry that, when it
sets, will form a permanent bond with the casing and wellbore to provide
a permanent barrier.
Specific barriers to be considered will include:
• Effectiveness of an OBM barrier for a kick
• Barriers in HP/HT reservoirs
• Barriers for weak, depleted reservoirs
• Low-density (SG < 0.85) barriers
• Foam as a barrier (Foam stability and breakdown; is foam a barrier
to a liquid?)
• Cementing (How efficient is cement in mud displacement?
How permanent is a permanent cement barrier?)
The session will review current conventional hydraulic barriers and address
the following issues:
• Where are these barriers efficient and reliable and where are they not?
• Under what conditions will they be stable and when will they fail?
• What monitoring of these barriers do we have and what is needed?
• What would an ideal barrier look like?
Session 6
Mechanical Barriers
Session Managers: Jan Brakel, Andrew Grisdale,
and Mel Whitby
In this session, we will discuss the role of mechanical barriers in drilling and
well intervention operations. Mechanical barriers can be either permanent or
temporary. The requirements to achieve a permanent barrier are specific: The
barrier must last for a significant period without the ability to be monitored
or repaired. It must remain effective beyond the time that steel casing/steel
plugs will survive. How many materials can satisfy this requirement today?
There are many methods of establishing a temporary well barrier. The purpose
of the barrier will dictate the type of barrier that is selected. It is therefore
fundamentally important to understand the intended function of the barrier,
i.e., what it should isolate and how the effectiveness of the barrier can be
positively verified. In particular, barrier effectiveness during well intervention
operations on live wells is critical and the session will develop a view on
reliability of current barrier systems.
A third category of barriers have a safeguarding function only, e.g.,
BlowOut Preventers. The session will review this barrier type to
establish their effectiveness and reliability and will aim to identify further
improvement opportunities.
www.spe.org/events/14fse1
Session 7
Automation and New Technologies—What Are the Barriers?
Session Managers: Ashley Johnson and Randy Lovorn
The prior sessions are self-examination of the state of our industry today with
some forward thinking on the individual topic. In this session, we will examine
whether current technologies are sufficient to meet the barrier challenges of
the future and consider the barriers to implementation of new technologies.
Although we will focus on automation, the scope of the session is sufficiently
broad to cover all new concepts and technology.
Automating the management of barriers is an opportunity that we will further
explore in the session. We will not only consider the benefits of such a system
but also the potential pitfalls of automation. Of course, reliability will be key
in the adoption of any new system; missed events or false positives will not
be tolerated.
In other industries, automation of certain processes has become prevalent. In
mass-manufacturing applications, automation brings benefits of consistency
and improved product quality. Automation of the control system for modern
jet aircraft can enable the plane to be stabilised where the vehicle would be
unstable under manual control.
In the session, the group will be challenged to define the characteristics of a
system that would be adoptable. The group will also consider how systems
will vary across different applications, from depleted low-pressure reservoirs
to the most complex HP/HT drilling operations. We will also consider how
automation should apply to the barrier systems through the production and
abandonment operational phases.
Session 8
Barriers to Change: Perceptions, Processes, and Business
Models
Session Managers: Jan Brakel and Raul Navarro
The Forum will evaluate the current situation with respect to well control
barriers from a perspective of standards and regulation, acceptable risk level,
process and people, and technology. A number of opportunities in each of
these areas to improve barrier integrity will emerge and it is possible that
some of these opportunities deviate significantly from current practices. Is
our industry sufficiently receptive to change and how do we manage the risks
associated with change? Is there anything that we can learn from the past or
other industries? In other words, how can this forum make a positive impact
on barrier effectiveness and contribute to making loss of life, significant injury,
and negative environmental impact a thing of the past.
Session 9
Reporting/Wrap-Up
Session Manager: Keith Lewis
The wrap-up session aims to develop personal action points/plans for
attendees. In addition, we will capture the main discussion points and actions
raised during the forum on a few slides and the contents will be agreed upon
by forum participants. The slide pack is for attendees to share when they
return to their companies. The main objective of this session is to stimulate
thought for future initiatives and technologies that will raise the industry’s
ability to maintain well control barriers under any condition.
 An Ounce of Prevention: Maintaining Well
Control Barriers Under Any Condition

Benefits to You and Your Organization 31 August–5 September 2014

• Gain insight and perspective through conversations with peers who Cannes, France
share your same interests.
• Enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of learning through one-on-one
interaction. Application Information
• Meet with other experts from international companies, research Participants at SPE Forums are selected by the
institutes, and universities in an off-the-record format. Forum Steering Committee based on the ability
• Form professional relationships that will continue after the forum to contribute to the discussion of the topic.
has ended. Attendance is limited to maximize each person’s
opportunity to contribute.
Forum Guidelines Accepted applicants will receive their registration
The following will prepare attendees for what to expect when attending form and other materials within two weeks of the
a forum: application deadline. For those requiring visas to
• Participants are expected to attend every session. attend the forum, please ensure that you leave
sufficient time for your visa to be processed.
• Slides are limited, allowing maximum time for informal discussions and
exchange of experience.
The forum Fee is EUR 2,580*
• Forums are conducted off the record to support the free interchange of
information and ideas.
and Includes
• Nine technical sessions
• Extensive note taking is not allowed.
• Five nights’ hotel accommodation (Bed
• Recording of any forum session is prohibited.
and Breakfast), arriving Sunday
• Information disclosed at a forum may not be used publicly without the
• Lunch, Monday to Friday
originator’s permission.
• Sunday evening reception and welcome dinner
• Participants are requested to omit reference to forum proceedings in any
subsequent published work or oral presentation. • Thursday farewell reception and dinner
• No commercialism. • Morning and afternoon coffee breaks
• A written summary will be prepared and distributed to attendees after * Includes 20% French VAT)
the forum.

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