Alberta and BC Casing Failure Map

The need to understand the causes of casing failure is becoming increasingly apparent. Casing failure is expensive to remediate if it doesn't totally destroy the ability to produce hydrocarbons through a wellbore. This phenomenon also

presents serious environmental challenges. As an entry point to understand this challenge, we have added data outlining Alberta and BC casing failure as an Enlighten Layer in Petro Ninja.

Creating a map is easy. Just go to http://petroninja.com/ and navigate to Layers/Enlighten Geoscience/Geomechanics and select the province you wish to review (Example shown above.).

And now on to the interesting stuff. Is it the occurrence of casing failures along the Peace River and its tributaries a coincidence or an indication of a subsurface geomechanical issue?

Green and Mountjoy (2005) discuss the evidence that the preferential dolomitization along the bank margin in the Kaybob South Swan Hills gas pool and, possibly, the location of the Kaybob South Channel itself was controlled by basement faulting. During a study of induced seismicity in the Fox Creek Duvernay, the author observed a significant alignment of seismic events with the trend of the Kaybob South Channel. This pattern is repeated in the distribution of casing failure.

Green and Mountjoy, 2005

This discussion just scratches the surface of a complex topic. We would love to hear from you if you are interested in a detailed conversation.

References

Darryl G. Green, Eric W. Mountjoy; Fault and conduit controlled burial dolomitization of the Devonian west-central Alberta Deep Basin. Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology 2005;; 53 (2): 101–129. doi: https://doi.org/10.2113/53.2.101