There are several thousand old, abandoned wells on the Norwegian continental shelf. Assessing the overall condition of the wells (quality of plugs, casing, and cement annulus) and monitoring any future leaks will be of great benefit, especially if the reservoirs where the wells are located are to be used for CO₂ storage or energy storage.
The LEGACY project focuses on accelerating the deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and large-scale underground energy storage by offering innovative techniques for assessing, monitoring, and mitigating well integrity issues and potential leaks. This enables safe and cost-effective large-scale CO₂ storage in areas with older wells.
The methods, workflows, and tools being developed will be crucial for the rapid and reliable assessment, maturation, and subsequent management of a CO₂ storage site at the large number of locations with older wells.
Other project objectives:
- Communicate effectively with the industry, government regulators, and the general public about the threats and opportunities associated with aging wells,
- Develop an automated workflow for screening aging wells,
- Demonstrate tools for cost-effective, non-invasive monitoring of well integrity and leaks,
- Develop and validate strategies for effective modeling and prediction of leak rates,
- Develop strategies to mitigate or correct well integrity issues,
- Explore the possibility of using older wells to improve monitoring of storage sites,
- Develop recommendations for future well construction and abandonment to facilitate monitoring.
