By Michael Edwards
Our well integrity enthusiasts showed up in a big way; from the service sector, to operators to academic institutions and many others participated in a dinner networking event, keynote and lively discussion highlighting the latest on well integrity practices, regulatory policies, technologies and services. We highlighted a panel discussion to discuss how we are empowering the workforce of the future. Excellent participation by our audience.
The Well integrity discipline, expertise, life-cycle processes and risk verification methodology are becoming more sought after than ever before with the energy transition. From new wells, P&A, reentry to repurposing for CCUS, geothermal and even hydrogen storage, the need for well integrity expertise, life cycle processes, standards, and risk management all have a role to play.
Considering the industry’s large investment in building the well integrity multi-discipline … it was timely and essential for us to relook at how we are empowering our workforce of the future.
For many years the industry has invested in well integrity expertise. This has historically been built with the exceptional 25-40 years experienced engineers that had a wealth of onsite, engineering and multi-discipline experiences. Losing this capability is a high cost and risk for our corporations and industry at large. This discipline is not taught as a single discipline in our universities and rarely in most companies. Well integrity engineers solve a wide diversity of problems, and with new digital tools have the ability to leverage historical data to train faster and improve decision making over a shorter period of time.
Our dinner keynote, Alexander Spuskanyuk leads the Well Integrity discipline for ExxonMobil and discussed their approach to well integrity through a well life cycle. He also discussed how they are shaping our new well integrity tools and training programs to empower the workforce of the future.
A special thanks to our sponsors Vallourec, Volant, GoWell and Viking Engineering.