- Safiu Kehinde
Shell engineers have emerged winner of the highly regarded 1st Place Technical Paper Award at the annual international and exhibition conference of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).
The Deep water Well engineers comprising of Augustine Okosun, Osehojie Ojeh-Oziegbe, Oluwatobilola Aribike and Oladokun Adubi won the award at the conference which ended in Lagos on Thursday.
As contained in a statement issued by the company, the engineers were commended “for an outstanding display of in-depth technical knowledge and quality delivery” in their presentation.
The paper titled Application of Perforate, Wash, and Cement (PWC) Technology for Annular Remediation in Deepwater Well Abandonment, deals with the PWC technology which is used for annular (the space between casing and wellbore) remediation to install permanent isolation barrier during well abandonment for zonal isolation and prevent fluid migration.
This process, according to the statement, is crucial in achieving safe and permanent abandonment of a well, preventing potential well integrity issues and environmental hazard.
The PWC technology which has been established globally as an efficient and cost-effective solution for annular remediation was deployed for the first time in deepwater Nigeria during the Bonga field Midlife plug and abandonment campaign in Q2 last year.
The paper highlighted the significant savings in cost and time compared to conventional methods.
In his remark, Augustine identified technology as a key aspect of the Shell’s operation.
“Technology is a key aspect of the culture of excellence in our operations and we hope the insights we shared will encourage a culture of cost effective and environmentally sound operations which the operators need to remain competitive.” He said.
The SPE Award for Best Technical paper underscores the kind of cutting-edge technology which SNEPCo has deployed to achieve top quartile performance and operation excellence in Bonga field.