Blowout scenario simulations and contingency study

Our well control and blowout contingency team were tasked to help carry out a blowout contingency study that would comply with the company’s safety guidelines and policy. The blowout contingency study was required to assure the shallow gas well could be killed via a single relief well in the event on an uncontrolled hydrocarbon release.

A blowout intervention for an offshore shallow gas well is often faced with many challenges such as the narrow depth window to build hydrostatic and frictional pressure during a dynamic kill combined with high pressure differential to balance the reservoir pressure.

For a worst-case blowout scenario, using a relief well injection spool (RWIS) can ensure the ability to bring such wells under control.

What we did

Our well control and flow simulation specialists modeled the worst-case-blowout scenario using the planned wellbore schematic and predicted reservoir properties.

A single relief well with an RWIS installed on its wellhead was used in the simulations to pump kill mud into the target wellbore. Several iterations were made using different kill muds and hardware configurations to achieve a successful kill.