A Seminar as Part of the Annual CO₂ Flooding Conference

Draft 11/25/14

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The Midland Center; Downtown Midland, Texas
Wednesday, Dec 9th, 20114

This repeat of the first-of-a-kind industry-driven seminar will be held beginning at 11:00 am at the Midland Center (MC) in Downtown Midland on Tuesday, Dec 9th with a working lunch and scheduled for wrap-up at 5:00 pm. This is a repeat of what was the 15th in a series of seminars and short courses on the technical aspects of CO₂ flooding.

Seminar Description: For 40 years now, the Permian Basin region of West Texas and SE New Mexico has been dealing with carbon dioxide injection for enhanced oil recovery. CO₂ injection brings with it special challenges because of the nature of CO₂, the gas-like viscosity of the fluid, and the pressures involved. The challenges are unique enough that most well control schools dedicated to drilling wells do not relate to many of the actual practices utilized in the CO₂ EOR world. With over 5000 Permian Basin injection wells and nearly 8000 U.S wells in CO₂ service, a lot of experience has been gained in learning what are the important parameters for controlling wellsite operations. Outside of an internal company course, we believe this Seminar is the only well control event designed specifically for CO₂ operations.

“Kill” techniques vary company to company and field to field. This seminar will address the key well control methods and the factors that companies, both operators and service organizations, consider when remediating an injection or producing well. Things like depth, permeability, maturity of a flood, and time of day are all key factors to consider when rigging up a workover unit. What are the precursor symptoms (and who needs to have the ‘eyes’ to see the evidence) of a possible problem in controlling the well? A section of the Seminar is devoted to case histories where practitioners will discuss aspects of field operations that pertain to well control problems that were averted and those very few that were not.

The subject material is strongly influenced by field experience and sharing your knowledge is encouraged during the panel discussion periods.  Some key personnel with years of experienced are present for the instruction.  Lonnie Ashley from LongShadow Consulting, Kirby Head from Whiting Petroleum, John Saenz of Tabula Rasa, Andy Rickard of Cambrian Management, and Ken Goldsmith of MudSmith in Midland have graciously committed to come share their knowledge on the subject with the audience.  We will have others experienced in CO₂ well control participate on the panel for an open discussion at the end of the seminar.

The Seminar is scheduled for Tuesday, December 9, 2014 at the Midland Center in downtown Midland, Texas. Make plans to attend and get your hotel reservation early as Midland and Odessa are very busy places these days. On-line registration is available at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/2014-co2-conference-week-registration-by-individual-events-or-packages-tickets-12746022697?aff=eac2

Course Outline

I.       Welcomes & Introduction (20 min)

• A. Overview of Session
• B. Background of CO₂ Flood well control issues
  • 1. Differences to Waterflood
  • 2. Common Practices
  • 3. Other (depth, maturity, other framing statements)
  • 4. Reminder to save questions

II.       Luncheon and Guest Speaker on Insurance “Traps” (Invited)

III.       Speaker Session Presentations

• A. Major topical coverage
  • 1. Shallow fields (0 – 4000’)
  • 2. Medium depth (4000’ – 7000’)
  • 3. Deep fields (7000’+)
  • 4. Type of kill
    • a) Top kill
    • b) Conventional (Circulate kill fluid to bottom)
    • c) Live well (“Snub” approach)
  • 5. Mud
    • a) Types – pros and cons; new heavy muds
    • b) Quality Control (QC)
    • c) Plant / onsite blending and testing
    • d) Reconditioning
    • e) Handling gas-cut mud
• B. Additional topics
  • 1. Safety and environmental
  • 2. New vs. Mature flood
  • 3. Kill weight determination
  • 4. Managing offset injection during well work
  • 5. Injector vs. Producer well control distinctions
  • 6. Daylight vs. 24 hour operations

III.       Panel and Audience Discussion and Q&A (1.5 hr.)

• A. Lead off topics
  • 1. Lessons Learned
  • 2. Indicators of changing well conditions
  • 3. Potential complications (pulling swelled packer, etc.)
  • 4. Company philosophies/Key practices

IV.        Evaluations and Adjourn at 5:00 (reception to follow at 5:30 at the Midland Center)