Assessment of Wellbore Integrity Failure Risk and Hazardous Zones in Depleted Reservoirs Underground Gas Storage During the Operation Processes

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-3336424/v1

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Assessment of Wellbore Integrity Failure Risk and Hazardous Zones in Depleted Reservoirs Underground Gas Storage During the Operation Processes

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3336424/v1

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published 05 Dec, 2023

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Depleted reservoirs are widely used for underground gas storage due to their advantages of low construction cost and easy development. Under the influence of complex geological conditions and frequent operations, the integrity of the wells in depleted reservoirs is prone to failure, which would potentially lead to gas leakage. In this study, by using a finite element based computational fluid dynamics model, we have developed evaluation criteria for assessing the severity of the occurred wellbore integrity failure and the risk of the un-occurred wellbore integrity failures respectively to identify hazardous zones potentially prone to wellbore integrity failure. The study results indicate that the gas storage wellbore integrity failure is prone to occur inside the wellbore structure in the direction of the minimum ground stress near the lower boundary of the formation interlayer. The wellbore integrity failure hazardous zones are mainly concentrated at the formation interlayer boundaries. The practical guidelines and solutions derived from current research results can be used for environmental protection work to avoid pollution problems caused by natural gas leakage.

depleted reservoir underground gas storage

wellbore integrity failure

risk assessment

hazardous zone

gas leakage

The advent of the low-carbon economy era has promoted new developments in the natural gas industry. Underground gas storage (UGS) facilities are important parts of the natural gas pipeline system and commonly created in depleted reservoirs, aquifers, or salt caverns (Confort and Mothe 2014; Yang et al. 2015). Out of the three techniques used, underground gas storage in depleted reservoirs is generally the cheapest and easiest to develop, operate, and maintain. UNGS facilities may be filling gas to maximum capacity with the rapid increase in natural gas extraction, resulting in very high pressures and a higher probability of gas leakage. During the operation of the depleted reservoirs gas storage, the complex geological conditions, frequent operations and high gas pressure may cause the wellbore integrity failure and presents a major risk to energy security, greenhouse gas emissions, and to the safety and health of nearby residents (Zhechao et al. 2019). There are 3000 underground gas storage facilities in the United States at risk of serious leakage, exceeding one fifth of the total (Michanowicz et al. 2017). Methane is the main gas stored in underground gas storage and an incredibly potent greenhouse gas which has acute impact on climate change (Dong et al. 2013). In addition, it may contaminate groundwater when gas leaks into the surrounding soil or passes through rock layers(Currell et al. 2017). Hence, it is necessary to imperative to predict the hazardous zones where wellbore integrity prone to failure and provide leakage path for the methane migration.

Previous research on wellbore integrity have been mainly focused on the open hole sections failure (e.g. borehole breakage, swelling and collapse) and the breaching of the cement inner and outer interface bonding (Bosma et al. 1999; Ravi et al. 2002; Teodoriu et al. 2013; Wang and Taleghani 2014; Guo et al. 2018; Dong et al. 2020; Santos and Dahi Taleghani 2022; Han et al. 2023). Few leakage risk analyses and hazardous zone prediction studies have been published for natural gas underground storage. The numerical simulation method is widely employed to study the wellbore integrity change throughout the gas operation processes. Researchers have used commercial software developed their own numerical models or conducted experimental studies to investigate the wellbore failure (Dahi Taleghani et al., 2017; Davies et al., 2014; Dou et al., 2020; Dusseault et al., 2000). Boukhelifa (Boukhelifa et al. 2004) experimentally evaluated zonal isolation of the cement systems in in a full scale annular geometry. They determined the functional relationship among the failure modes of cement sheath, in-situ stress and boundary conditions. Gray (Gray et al. 2009) studied the damage state of casing-cement rings numerically and compared the predictions with experimental data and found that changes in the micro-ring gap at the cemented interface were related to changes in the magnitude of cement shrinkage. Rocha-Valadez (Rocha-Valadez et al. 2014) optimized the SCP model based on the system transport process and obtained the results of gas influx. Wei (Wei et al. 2015) summarized the failure patterns at the cement interface based on a theoretical model of casing-cement-formation interaction. Fan (Fan et al. 2019) using stepped finite element method to develop a cement interface fracture expansion model. It was found that the cement elastic modulus and the consolidation degree are beneficial for reducing the crack length.

Risk assessment is a comprehensive process for hazard identification analysis and assessment (Zhang et al. 2013). The risk assessment techniques in wellbore integrity study can effectively reduce the risk of uncontrolled gas leakage in the entire life of wells. Moos (Moos et al. 2003) and Gholami (Gholami et al. 2015) determined the effect of uncertainty on the wellbore stability with the help of quantitative risk assessment. Liang (Liang et al. 2018) utilized the simulation findings together with a fuzzy synthetic assessment approach to calculate the size of the subsurface area that was contaminated as a result of oil leakage. The applications of current developments in uncertainty quantification, probabilistic risk assessment (PRA), and decision-making under uncertainty to hydrogeology were given by Tartakovsky (Tartakovsky 2013). When studying the case of Lebanon oil spill in 2006, the hazards and uncertainties brought on by unidentified spill features were quantified by Neves (Neves et al. 2015) using an ensemble oil spill model. Aljaroudi (Aljaroudi et al. 2015) provided an integrated risk-based assessment framework to forecast offshore crude oil pipeline failure effects and determined whether the estimated risk exceeded a predefined target risk.

In a previous study, we have presented an FEM based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for wellbore integrity analyses for underground gas storage operation processes (Wang et al. 2022). By using the model developed in our earlier work and relevant wellbore integrity management and design standards, we have further established criterions for determining the severity of the occurrence of wellbore integrity failures and the risks of un-occurred wellbore integrity failures. Further analyses were also conducted to determine the location of the hazardous zones where the well is prone to failure. This study findings can provide an accurate direction for monitoring and protecting work of wellbore integrity, and fundamentally reduce the risk of methane leakage and protecting the environment safety.

2.1 Wellbore integrity failure law analysis

Integrity of wellbores used for gas injection/production processes have been extensively studied in the literature and some general conclusions have been offered (Goodwin and Crook 1992; Thiercelin et al. 1998; Bois et al. 2012; Zhang and Eckert 2020; Deng et al. 2023). However, only a few of these studies focused on the specific locations where wellbore integrity is prone to failure (e.g., whether the failure happens near the formation interlayer, cement inner surface or outer surface, etc.).

In our previous research, we studied the wellbore integrity failure law during the injection and production processes of gas storage and obtained specific data (Wang et al. 2022), as shown in Fig. 1. By analyzing the wellbore integrity failure data, a summary of the statistical results of wellbore integrity failures occurring in the gas storage wells are shown in Tables 1 & 2. It can be found that the gas storage wellbore integrity failure is prone to occur inside the wellbore structure in the minimum ground stress direction near the lower interlayer boundary during the operation processes.

Table 1

Wellbore integrity failure law during the gas injection process
		Cement shear	Cement tensile	Casing strength
Position	Near the upper interlayer boundary	√
	Interlayer zone		√
	Near the lower interlayer boundary	√	√	√
Inside and outside	Inside	√	√	√
Inside and outside	Outside	√
Direction	Minimum ground stress	√	√	√
Direction	Maximum ground stress	√	√

Table 2

Wellbore integrity failure law during the gas production process
		Cement shear	Cement inner interface	Cement outer interface	Casing strength
Position	Near the upper interlayer boundary	√		√
	Interlayer zone		√
	Near the lower interlayer boundary	√		√	√
Inside and outside	Inside	√			√
Inside and outside	Outside	√
Direction	Minimum ground stress	√	√		√
Direction	Maximum ground stress	√		√

2.2 Severity and risk assessment of wellbore integrity failure

In our previous study (Wang et al. 2022), the possible forms and results of wellbore integrity failure during gas injection and production have been summarized. In order to further explore the hidden value of wellbore integrity data from our previous study and identify hazardous zones where wellbore integrity failure prone to occur, in this study, we have developed criterions for assessing the severity of the occurred wellbore integrity failures and the risk of un-occurred wellbore integrity by referring to relevant wellbore integrity management and design standards. The previous CFD simulation data is converted into the corresponding wellbore integrity failure indicators.

2.2.1 Evaluation criteria for severity of the occurred wellbore integrity failures

(1)Cement shear failure

For the occurred wellbore integrity failure results during the operation of gas storage injection and production wells, the failure nodes number in the unit depth area is counted as the key indicator of severity evaluation. The following formula is used to evaluate the severity of wellbore integrity failure at a certain depth:

${F}_{1}=\frac{{f}_{si}}{{f}_{s\text{m}\text{a}\text{x}}}$

(1)

Where, F₁ is the evaluation index of wellbore failure severity at a certain depth, ${f}_{si}$ is the number of failure nodes at a certain depth, ${f}_{smax}$ is the maximum number of failure nodes of the whole well part.

(2)Cohesive failure of the cement interface

The CSQUADSCRT variable in the quadratic stress criterion is selected as the standard to judge the severity of cement inner or outer interfaces failure:

${F}_{2}={f}_{1\text{C}\text{S}\text{Q}\text{U}\text{A}\text{D}\text{S}\text{C}\text{R}\text{T}}$	(2)
${F}_{3}={f}_{2\text{C}\text{S}\text{Q}\text{U}\text{A}\text{D}\text{S}\text{C}\text{R}\text{T}}$	(3)

Where, F₂, F₃ are the evaluation index of the severity of cement inner or outer interface cohesive failure at a certain position; ${f}_{1\text{C}\text{S}\text{Q}\text{U}\text{A}\text{D}\text{S}\text{C}\text{R}\text{T}}$ and ${f}_{2\text{C}\text{S}\text{Q}\text{U}\text{A}\text{D}\text{S}\text{C}\text{R}\text{T}}$ are the quadratic stress damage standards, once this indicator reaches 1, it means that the cohesive force of cement interface here has failed.

According to the established evaluation criteria for the severity of wellbore integrity failure, the severity of the occurrence of wellbore integrity failures is divided into four grades based on the evaluation index F: Mild, Moderate, Severe, and Extremely severe. They are represented by different color, as shown in Table 3.

Table 3 Evaluation standard of wellbore integrity failure severity

Failure level	Description	Wellbore integrity failure severity evaluation index F	Colour
1	Mild	0~25%	Green
2	Moderate	26%~50%	Yellow
3	Severe	51%~75%	Orange
4	Extremely severe	76%~100%	Red

2.2.2 Criteria for risk assessment of un-occurred wellbore integrity failures

The average value of the stress in each region is statistically assessed based on the yield strength of the material. The following formula is used to evaluate the risk of casing strength failure.

$$E=\frac{{\sum }_{i=1}^{n}{f}_{mi}}{n*M}$$

Where, E is the strength failure risk assessment index of a certain node of casing, ${f}_{mi}$ is the Von Mises stress on the node, MPa, n is the number of nodes prone to strength failure of casing at this depth, M is the yield strength of the casing, MPa.

The risk of wellbore integrity failure is divided into four grades (Winecki et al. 2022): Very low, Low, Medium, and High. They are represented by different color, as shown in Table 5.

Table4 Evaluation standard of wellbore integrity failure risk

Failure level	Description	Wellbore integrity failure risk assessment index E	Colour
1	Very low	0~25%	Green
2	Low	26%~50%	Yellow
3	Medium	51%~75%	Orange
4	High	76%~100%	Red

2.3 Hazardous zone determination criteria of well wellbore integrity failure

To determine the hazardous zone of wellbore integrity failure in gas storage, the assessment results of wellbore integrity failure severity and risk of the gas storage wells obtained above are taken into consideration. Equations (5) and (6) are used to calculate the hazardous zone evaluation index of the wellbore integrity failure in different areas of the gas storage wellbore:

$${S}_{i}=\frac{{\sum }_{i=1}^{n}{\sigma }_{3n}}{n*{\stackrel{-}{{\sigma }_{3}}}_{min}}$$

$${d}_{i}={S}_{i}+{F}_{1i}+{F}_{2i}+{E}_{i}$$

Where, S_i is the severity index of cement shear failure, F_1i is the severity index of cement inner interface cohesive failure, F_2i is the severity index of cement outer interface cohesive failure, E_i is the risk index of casing strength failure, n is the cement shear failure nodes number, ${\stackrel{-}{{\sigma }_{3}}}_{min}$ is the minimum value of the average minimum principal stress in the cement shear failure area, d_i is the hazardous zone evaluation index of wellbore integrity failure.

After getting the hazardous zone evaluation index at a certain depth of well, Eq. (5) can be used to determine the risk level of wellbore integrity failure in the entire wellbore. And the hazardous zone level of well at each depth is classified.

$${D}_{i}=\frac{{d}_{i}}{{d}_{max}}$$

Where, D_i is the evaluation index of the wellbore integrity failure hazardous zone, ${d}_{max}$ is the maximum value of the evaluation index of wellbore integrity failure hazardous zone. This formula can be used to determine the hazardous zone level of wellbore integrity failure in the entire wellbore.

The evaluation standard of the hazardous zone of well integrity failure is established by using the relevant norms and research results of well integrity risk assessment (Dethlefs and Chastain 2012). It is divided into four levels (Tartakovsky 2013): Very low, Low, Medium and High, which are represented by green, yellow, orange and red respectively, as shown in Table 5.

Table 5 Hazardous zone evaluation standard of wellbore integrity failure

Hazard level	Description	Evaluation index range	Colour
1	Very low	0~25%	Green
2	Low	26%~50%	Yellow
3	Medium	51%~75%	Orange
4	High	76%~100%	Red

The wellbore integrity failure results obtained from our previous study are evaluated by using the severity and risk assessment criteria established in Section 2.2.

3.1 Severity and risk assessment of wellbore integrity failure (gas injection process)

Figure 2 shows the severity results of the cement shear failures that occurred during gas injection process. The cement shear failure is mainly concentrated at the boundaries on both sides of the interlayer. It can be observed that most of the cement shear failure severity is at Level 1, and more significant failure severity level (Level 3 and Level 4) is observed near the lower interlayer boundary. It indicates that the cement may experience significant shear failure at that position during the gas storage injection process.

Figure 3 demonstrates the wellbore integrity failure risk assessment results during the gas storage injection process. The cement tensile failure risk is highly significant (mostly Level 4), indicating that cement is prone to occur tensile failure in the formation interlayer and the lower region of the wellbore. In contrast, the casing has a lower strength failure risk with only two Level 2 failure risk in zones near the lower interlayer boundary. It indicates that the casing is prone to occur strength failure at the lower boundary under this working condition.

3.2 Severity and risk assessment of wellbore integrity failure (gas production process)

Figure 4 shows the evaluation results of the occurred wellbore integrity failure in the form of a histogram. The wellbore integrity failure evaluation results are concentrated in the formation interlayer and near the upper and lower boundaries. The cement shear failure severity in the formation upper boundary is relatively low while there are two failure zones severity near the formation lower boundary reaching Level 3 & 4.

The cement inner interface failure is mainly concentrated in two areas within the range of the interlayer. The severity level distribution of these two areas shows a similar trend of increasing first and then decreasing (Level 2 to 4 and 2 again). The cement outer interface failure is mainly concentrated at both boundaries of the formation interlayer. Comparing to the upper boundary area severity assessment result (all Level 1), the cement outer interface failure is more significant (three Level 4) areas near the lower boundary. It indicates that the cement outer interface will have very significant cohesive failure in the lower boundary area during the gas storage production process.

Figure 5 demonstrates the risk assessment results of the un-occurred wellbore integrity failure. There are only 2 risk zones with Level 2 failure risk at the interlayer lower boundary, indicating that the casing is more prone to strength failure at the lower interlayer boundary under this working condition.

To determine the hazardous zones prone to wellbore integrity failure, a criterion is established by comprehensively considering the occurred and unoccurred wellbore integrity failure results during gas injection and production processes.

4.1 Evaluation of wellbore integrity failure hazardous zones (gas injection process)

After evaluating the wellbore integrity failure results, the location and hazard level of wellbore that are prone to failure during the gas storage injection process are determined. The results of hazardous zones evaluation index D at different depth of wellbore during gas injection process are shown in Table 6. It can be seen that the cement shear failure index S is greater than 1, while the cement tensile failure index E₁ and the casing strength failure index E₂ are both less than 1. This is because only the cement shear failure occurred during the gas injection stage. By calculating the hazardous zone evaluation index of wellbore integrity failure at different depth, we can obtain the hazard level of the corresponding position to determine the most likely zone of wellbore integrity failure during the gas injection process.

Table 6

Summary of wellbore integrity failure hazardous zone indices (gas injection process)
Depth(m)	S	E₁	E₂	d	D	Hazard level
4298.5	-	0.82	-	0.82	0.35	2
4299	1.00	0.92	-	1.92	0.82	4
4299.5	1.49	0.85	-	2.35	1	4
4300	1.24	0.86	-	2.10	0.90	4
4300.5	-	0.86	-	0.86	0.37	2
4302	-	0.83	-	0.83	0.36	2
4302.5	-	0.83	-	0.83	0.36	2
4303	-	0.83	-	0.83	0.35	2
4303.5	-	0.81	-	0.81	0.35	2
4304	-	0.85	-	0.85	0.36	2
4304.5	1.16	0.83	-	1.99	0.85	4
4305	1.24	0.84	-	2.08	0.88	4
4305.5	1.36	-	-	1.36	0.58	3
4306	-	0.59	0.37	0.96	0.41	2
4306.50	-	-	0.37	0.37	0.16	1
4307	-	0.84	-	0.84	0.36	2
4307.5	-	0.83	-	0.83	0.36	2
4308	-	0.83	-	0.83	0.35	2
4308.5	-	0.86	-	0.86	0.37	2
4309	-	0.90	-	0.90	0.38	2
4309.5	-	0.88	-	0.88	0.37	2
4312	-	0.83	-	0.83	0.35	2
4312.5	-	0.85	-	0.85	0.36	2
4313	-	0.89	-	0.89	0.38	2
4313.5	-	0.89	-	0.89	0.38	2
4314	-	0.86	-	0.86	0.36	2
4314.5	-	0.85	-	0.85	0.36	2
4315	-	0.84	-	0.84	0.36	2
4315.5	-	0.84	-	0.84	0.36	2

Figure 6 is the bar chart of the wellbore integrity failure hazardous zones evaluation results along the wellbore depth. The high hazard level zones are mainly concentrated in the well middle and lower parts, and the hazard level in most areas is at level 2.

There are 6 medium and high level hazardous zones, of which 1 medium level zone is located at the lower boundary, and 5 high level hazardous zones concentrated above the upper and lower boundary. The specific distribution results are shown in Table 7.

Table 7

Positions of the wellbore integrity failure hazardous zones (gas injection process)
Hazard level	Description	Number	Wellbore length (m)
3	Medium	1	4306.5 m
4	High	5	4299 m
			4299.5 m
			4300 m
			4304.5 m
			4305 m

4.2 Evaluation of wellbore integrity failure hazardous zones (gas production process)

The hazard evaluation indices and corresponding depths of wellbore integrity failures during gas production process are calculated as shown in Table 8.

Table 8

Summary of failure hazardous zone indices (gas production process)
Depth (m)	S	F₁	F₂	E₂	d	D	Risk level
4300.5	-	-	0.25	-	0.25	0.09	1
4301	1.13	-	0.25	-	1.38	0.49	2
4301.5	1.23	-	0.16	-	1.39	0.49	2
4302	1.24	0.41	-	-	1.65	0.59	3
4302.5	1.11	1	-	-	2.11	0.75	3
4303	1.02	0.42	-	-	1.44	0.51	3
4304	-	0.41	-	-	0.41	0.15	1
4304.5	1.01	1	-	-	2.01	0.72	3
4305	1.07	0.42	0.16	-	1.65	0.59	3
4305.5	1.36	-	1	-	2.36	0.84	4
4306	1.43	-	1	0.38	2.81	1	4
4306.5	1.43	-	1	0.38	2.81	1	4
4307	1.18	-	0.16	-	1.34	0.48	2
4307.5	1.15	-	-	-	1.15	0.41	2

Due to the application of the quadratic failure criterion, the maximum values of the judgment indicators F₁ and F₂ for the cement inner and outer interface failure are 1, which is different from the cement structure failure.

Figure 7 shows the wellbore integrity failure hazardous zone determination results along the wellbore depth. The hazardous zones mainly occur in the vicinity of the formation interlayer and the lower boundary. The hazard level near the upper interlayer boundary shows an upward trend with increasing depth. The highest hazard level is Level 3, which appears at the bottom of the area. The hazard level distribution near the lower boundary shows a trend of increasing first and decreasing. The highest hazard Level 4 appears at the lower interlayer boundary.

There is a total of 8 medium and high hazardous zones during the gas storage production process, and the specific distribution results are shown in Table 9. 5 medium hazardous zones are located within the interlayer range, and 3 high hazardous zones are distributed near the lower interlayer boundary. The wellbore integrity monitoring and protection work should be focused on these zones to reduce the integrity failure risk.

Table 9

Positions of the failure hazardous zones (gas production process)
Hazardous level	Description	Number	Depth(m)
3	Medium	5	4302 m 4302.5 m 4303 m 4304.5 m 4305 m
4	High	3	4305.5 m 4306 m 4306.5 m

In this study, using an FEM-CFD based wellbore integrity model developed earlier, we have developed criterions for determining the positions where wellbore integrity is prone to failure. This determination results can provide an accurate direction for monitoring and protecting work of wellbore integrity and fundamentally reduce the risk of methane leakage. Based on the analyses of research results, we offer the following conclusions:

The gas storage wellbore integrity failure is prone to occur inside the wellbore structure in the direction of the minimum ground stress near the interlayer lower boundary. These results are applicable for both gas storage injection and production processes.
The wellbore integrity failure hazardous zones during gas injection process are extensive and mainly concentrated in the middle and lower regions of the formation interlayer. And the medium and high hazard level failure zones all concentrated near the formation interlayer upper and lower boundaries.
The wellbore integrity failure hazardous zones during the gas production process mainly occur in the vicinity of the formation interlayer, near the lower interlayer boundary. The hazard level of wellbore integrity near the upper interlayer boundary shows an upward trend with increasing depth while the hazard level distribution near the lower boundary shows a trend of first increasing and then decreasing with the increasing depth.
The wellbore integrity monitoring and protection work should be focused on the high hazard level zones to reduce the risk of methane leakage and protecting the environment safety.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank anonymous reviewers for his constructive discussions and inspiring comments.

Author contribution

Rui Wang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Writing - Original Draft

Ergun Kuru: Conceptualization, Writing - Review & Editing, Supervision, Resources

Chaojie Zhao: Validation, Supervision, Visualization

Minggang Liu: Writing - Review & Editing, Investigation

Yanxin Jin: Supervision

Funding

The authors would like to thank the ﬁnancial support for this work from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52304017).

Availability of data and materials

The data used to support the ﬁndings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Ethical Approval

Ethics approval Not applicable.

Consent to Participate

Consent to participate Not applicable.

Consent to Publish

Consent for publication Not applicable.

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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published 05 Dec, 2023

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Assessment of Wellbore Integrity Failure Risk and Hazardous Zones in Depleted Reservoirs Underground Gas Storage During the Operation Processes

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Abstract

Figures

1. Introduction

2. Simulation results analysis and judgment criterion

2.1 Wellbore integrity failure law analysis

2.2 Severity and risk assessment of wellbore integrity failure

2.2.1 Evaluation criteria for severity of the occurred wellbore integrity failures

2.2.2 Criteria for risk assessment of un-occurred wellbore integrity failures

2.3 Hazardous zone determination criteria of well wellbore integrity failure

3. Assessment of wellbore integrity failure during the gas storage operation processes

3.1 Severity and risk assessment of wellbore integrity failure (gas injection process)

3.2 Severity and risk assessment of wellbore integrity failure (gas production process)

4. Determination of well wellbore integrity failure hazardous zones

4.1 Evaluation of wellbore integrity failure hazardous zones (gas injection process)

4.2 Evaluation of wellbore integrity failure hazardous zones (gas production process)

5. Conclusions

Declarations

References

Status:

Journal Publication

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