This little job took place just at the tail end of summer in Central Romania 2012. This was a completion and a well test. As it turned out this well, which expected a high gas production rate just did not come to fuition. In the end it led to a P & A.
At the height of the well test it only managed 17,000scm/day and had a terrible problem with what they in Romania call Marl. Now I had never heard of this before but would welcome any comments about this substance that is sometime contained in gas reservoirs. To look at it it looks like a shiny grey coloured drilling mud. Our first thoughts when flowing the well initiaally was that we were producing drilling mud but yet the previous well history showed no losses during the drilling phase. This Marl production went on for about three day and when we got to the stage where we had produced a lot more than there could have possibly have been in losses, we got the news through that the whole reservoir has a problem like this.
Perhaps a break down in communication was a cotributing factor. The programme stated to open up to a 34/64" choke in 4/64" stages. But yet speaking to the local production geologist he said they would never open up on any more than a 16/64" choke, even though it was an exploration well. The idea should have been to open the well slowly on a 6/64" choke and come no higher than 16/64". I think because a heavy drilling mud was used during drilling, 1.69sg this caused a lot of confusion during the flow back period.
However as we P & A'd this well, it may be revisited at a later date, perhaps a side track. We ended up leaving the lower completion down hole and setting a bridge plug and cement plug above the packer. It's still disappointing when you go through the whole precess of drilling a well only to abandon it when it does not flow. But I guess this is the nature of exploration well.
Romania has thousands of producing well in both oil and gas. It appears to be one of Europe's best kept secrets with quite a turbulent history. The Germans were the first ones to take Romanian oil and gas to fuel their war machine during WWII. Then came the Soviets and exported most of the oil and gas production for themselves. Therefore it does come as quite a surprise that one of the poorest coutries in Europe is such a high oil and gas producer both on land locations throughout Romania and off-shore in the Black Sea.
However, it is good to see a country such as Romania continuing to be a big producer of oil and gas. For anyone interested in books on oil and gas, visit www.novelbookshop.co.uk or in the US www.novelbookshop.com
