Mr Mueller likens the role of cementers in well construction to that of cornerbacks in football: “When we fall down and someone passes for a touchdown, everyone sees it. … When there’s a failure (in cementing), it’s typically quite noticeable and costly, even catastrophic. … You have to always ask yourself, ‘What haven’t I thought about? What can go wrong? If it does go wrong, how can we fix it?’ ”
In the wake of Montara, I recommend that you read an excellent article in the latest edition of Drilling Contractor magazine about Dan Mueller, a cementing specialist for ConocoPhillips. Having read hundreds of pages about the cementing issues that appear to be the root-cause of the Montara blowout, it was refreshing to see Mr. Mueller’s comments and learn more about his company’s commitment to safe and effective cementing operations. While incidents like Montara rightfully attract much of our attention, most companies understand the importance of cementing and provide the resources necessary to ensure success. As the article reminds us:
The high stakes at play – plus the increasingly hostile conditions under which wells are drilled today – means that preplanning on a well-by-well basis is crucial. Thermal modeling, wellbore stress modeling, hydraulics modeling, computational dynamics modeling – everything that can be done has to be done to make sure nothing gets overlooked. In today’s complex wells, Mr Mueller explained, anything that’s an “unknown” has the potential to damage the cement’s effectiveness.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 