Case Studies of Expanding Cement To Prevent Microannular Formation

Abstract

Abstract To improve our understanding of cement debonding linked to microannulus formation and, in particular, to develop better non-shrinking cements to ensure zonal isolation, a well simulating annulus experiment has been developed and tests with expanding cements have been performed. The expansion experiments demonstrate that expanding cements can prevent the formation of a microannulus if the cement properties are designed with respect to the rock properties. A good application for expanding cements is the isolation of gas storage reservoirs. Two examples are shown to demonstrate the efficiency of expanding cements.