Nigerian Well Abandonment Landscape: Challenges and Lessons from Global Trends

Abstract Permanent plug and abandonment is the last activity in the lifecycle of every oil and gas well. With a rising number of mature assets globally, a wave of well abandonment and infrastructure removal projects faces the industry. As a maturing basin, Nigeria needs to prepare ahead of time for the decommissioning scope. This study analyses open-source datasets to understand the decommissioning trends in five selected countries in addition to Nigeria to provide recommendations for decommissioning excellence in Nigeria. The available information indicates that approximately 8,211 wells have been drilled in Nigeria, with 7,079 wells drilled from inception to 2011 and an additional 1,132 wells drilled in the country between 2011 and 2023. The dataset does not specify the completion dates for 9 percent of the 7,079 wells. However, 77% of wells drilled on or before 2011 in Nigeria have at least one scanned log record. Although these logs are undefined in the dataset, their availability suggests good value for data in the industry. 46 percent of wells with completion dates in Nigeria are over 40 years old, but there is limited data on completed decommissioning operations in the country. However, the recent announcement that about 400 of the 600 wells recently acquired from a multinational by an indigenous operator are inactive suggests that a significant amount of the old well stock in Nigeria is yet to be decommissioned. This study recommends that decommissioning excellence will be achieved in Nigeria through increased data sharing and collaboration driven by the regulator, expansion of the indigenous capacity, openness to alternative technologies and barrier materials and subjecting every decommissioning project in Nigeria to a comprehensive cost and life cycle assessment at the panning phase. The design of future wells should also be optimized for efficient decommissioning.