The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) and the Office of Fossil Energy (FE) announced the selection of 5 projects to receive up to $15 million in funding to investigate wellbore integrity research subjects via a Lab Call announcement. This funding opportunity will address two topic areas:
- Wellbore Diagnostics and Integrity assessment in legacy wells, and
- Sensors and Tools for Autonomous Completions and Long Term Monitoring of Wellbore Integrity.
GTO and FE partnered in response to a report published by FE in October 2016 titled, Ensuring Safe and Reliable Underground Natural Gas Storage. The report states that to lower the risk for wellbore failure, operators should prioritize integrity tests that provide hard data on well performance through monitoring, logging, and mechanical integrity testing. Well Integrity testing should also use multiple methodologies and not rely on a single diagnostics, and use continuous real time monitoring.
The selected awardees include:
- Sandia National Laboratories
- National Energy and Technology Laboratory
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory