Well Integrity Risk Assessment in Geothermal Wells - Status of Today
Well Integrity Risk Assessment in Geothermal Wells - Status of Today
Well Integrity Risk Assessment in Geothermal Wells - Status of Today
Ares(2016)6753961 - 02/12/2016
Deliverable D6.1
Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal
wells – Status of today
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 654497.
The contents of this publication do not necessarily reflect the Commission's
own position. The document reflects only the author's views and the
European Union and its institutions are not liable for any use that may be
made of the information contained here.
D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
Executive summary
As part of activities in work package 6 of the GeoWell project, deliverable 6.1 aims to present
the current status of risk assessment methods and well integrity for geothermal wells, in order
to provide a starting point for listing future requirements for geothermal risk assessments .
In order to map the status of risk assessment methods/techniques and well integrity related to
geothermal wells, a literature review and a risk assessment survey have been conducted. The
survey has been sent to stakeholders in both geothermal and petroleum industries with the
aim to map the status of risk assessments that are performed in these industries.
An overview of the publications that were reviewed, together with the risk assessment survey
and its scope, methodology, criteria and preparatory requirements for conducting it, the
collected (raw) data and the analysis of data are also presented in this report. The results from
both the review and the survey should be interpreted as indicative, not conclusive evidence,
due to a limited portion of publications reviewed and limited responses to the survey.
The main findings can be summarized as follows:
Based on the papers reviewed, the mostly addressed risk type relates to
project/financial risk, which differs significantly from our impression of focus in the
petroleum industry. This is probably due to the fact that while there is an enormous
financial upside when drilling petroleum exploration wells, this is not the case for
geothermal wells. Furthermore, the financial margins during production of geothermal
projects are typically far less than for oil and gas.
Another important focus area in the papers is geological risk. However, this is often
tightly related to project/financial risk; large uncertainties in the resources to be
exploited will consequently result in large uncertainty in the project feasibility as well.
Only 11% of the publications cover well integrity as a topic addressed.
Only a few publications reviewed concern risk of loss of containment, or risks of failures
in barriers. In fact, the term barrier is hardly mentioned, and even the papers dealing
with well integrity do so to a large extent without considering the system as comprised
of barriers with failure modes and reliabilities.
In the literature review, monetary indices were the most used method, with either
probabilistic methods or coarse risk ranking following.
The survey finds brainstorming to be the most used risk identification method.
The use of methods varies more between the areas of application for risk analysis. The
most used methods were HAZOP, root cause analysis, scenario analysis and
environmental risk and decision tree analysis, depending on the area.
For risk evaluation, the situation was similar to risk analysis. This is not surprising, given
that the risk evaluation is based on the risk analysis. Depending on the area, Monte
Carlo simulation, root cause analysis, structured what-if technique analysis and
environmental risk analysis were most frequently chosen methods.
Regarding the use of risk assessment methods in terms of resource demands, nature
of uncertainty and complexity, there is no evidence to suggest that there is an
overweight of simplistic, low-complexity methods in use in the geothermal industry.
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Contents
Executive summary ...................................................................................................... 2
Contents ....................................................................................................................... 3
Tables .......................................................................................................................... 4
Figures ......................................................................................................................... 4
Abbreviations ............................................................................................................... 6
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 8
Scope .............................................................................................................. 8
Methodology .................................................................................................... 9
Outline of the report ....................................................................................... 10
2 Well integrity in geothermal and petroleum industries ........................................... 11
Introduction to well integrity ........................................................................... 11
Petroleum vs. geothermal wells ..................................................................... 12
Financial ............................................................................................... 12
Formation characteristics ...................................................................... 12
Drilling .................................................................................................. 13
Well design ........................................................................................... 14
Production ............................................................................................ 14
Cementing ............................................................................................ 14
Geothermal wells – Challenges, risks and well integrity issues ...................... 15
3 Risk assessment ................................................................................................... 17
Important risk-related definitions .................................................................... 17
General risk frameworks ................................................................................ 17
Regulations.................................................................................................... 20
Risk assessment methods/techniques ........................................................... 22
4 Risk assessment survey ....................................................................................... 25
Objectives ...................................................................................................... 25
Methodology .................................................................................................. 25
Hypothesis............................................................................................ 25
Reasoning for survey questions............................................................ 25
Selection of the recipients..................................................................... 27
Preparatory requirements .............................................................................. 27
Post survey evaluation ................................................................................... 28
5 Results and discussion ......................................................................................... 30
Risk assessment status in the geothermal industry – Literature ..................... 30
Risk assessment status – Survey .................................................................. 34
Respondent overview ........................................................................... 34
Areas of application .............................................................................. 37
Summary of the analysis................................................................................ 50
6 Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 52
7 Dissemination and future activities ........................................................................ 53
References ................................................................................................................. 54
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Appendices ................................................................................................................ 57
Appendix I: The GeoWell risk assessment survey................................................. 57
Appendix II: Responses to the survey ................................................................... 65
Appendix III: List of papers reviewed for Section 5.2.1 .......................................... 87
Tables
Table 3-1. Different available methods and techniques for assessing risks [32] ......... 23
Table 4-1. Different preparatory and quality assurance considerations for the survey. 28
Figures
Figure 1-1. Different phases in the life cycle of a well. .................................................. 9
Figure 3-1. A general framework for risk management as presented in ISO
31000:2009. ............................................................................................................... 18
Figure 3-2. Risk assessment framework with a quantitative focus, as presented in
NORSOK Z-013. ........................................................................................................ 19
Figure 3-3. Risk assessment frameworks for nuclear industry (left, IAEA 2001) [21]
and for CO2 geological storage (right, IEA GHG 2009) [22]. ....................................... 20
Figure 4-1. Registered time spent for respondents spending less than 2 hours (Left)
and registered last question answered for the unfinished responses (Right). ............. 29
Figure 5-1. An overview of the reviewed papers by publication year........................... 30
Figure 5-2. Different types of risks addressed in the reviewed papers. ....................... 31
Figure 5-3. Distribution of the reviewed papers covering uncertainty quantification.
................................................................................................................................... 32
Figure 5-4. An overview of different types of risk assessment methods addressed
in reviewed papers. .................................................................................................... 32
Figure 5-5. An overview of the resource demands, nature of uncertainty and
complexity in risk assessment methods addressed in the reviewed papers, as
classified in ISO 31010:2009. N/A are papers where no specific risk assessment
method is mentioned/presented. ................................................................................ 33
Figure 5-6. Distribution of the papers that address well integrity. ................................ 34
Figure 5-7. Industry as categorized by the respondents. ............................................ 35
Figure 5-8. Registered continents of respondents from the geothermal industry......... 36
Figure 5-9. Breakdown of the respondents based on company type, and whether
or not they perform risk assessments of wells. ........................................................... 36
Figure 5-10. An overview of different areas for which companies perform risk
assessments. ............................................................................................................. 37
Figure 5-11. Distribution of methods used for financial/project risk identification. ....... 38
Figure 5-12. Distribution of methods used for financial/project risk analysis. .............. 38
Figure 5-13. Distribution of methods used for financial/project risk evaluation. ........... 39
Figure 5-14. Distribution of methods used for health and safety risk identification. ..... 40
Figure 5-15. Distribution of methods used for health and safety risk analysis. ............ 40
Figure 5-16. Distribution of methods used for health and safety risk evaluation. ......... 41
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Figure 5-17. Distribution of methods used for barrier risk identification. ...................... 42
Figure 5-18. Distribution of methods used for barrier risk analysis. ............................. 42
Figure 5-19. Distribution of methods used for barrier risk evaluation .......................... 43
Figure 5-20. Distribution of methods used for geological risk identification. ................ 43
Figure 5-21. Distribution of methods used for geological risk analysis. ....................... 44
Figure 5-22. Distribution of methods used for geological risk evaluation. .................... 44
Figure 5-23. Distribution of methods used for geological event risk identification........ 45
Figure 5-24. Distribution of methods used for geological event risk analysis. ............. 45
Figure 5-25. Distribution of methods used for geological event risk evaluation. .......... 46
Figure 5-26. Distribution of methods used for pressure/well control risk
identification. .............................................................................................................. 46
Figure 5-27. Distribution of methods used for pressure/well control risk analysis........ 47
Figure 5-28. Distribution of methods used for pressure/well control risk evaluation.
................................................................................................................................... 47
Figure 5-29. Distribution of methods used for environmental risk identification. .......... 48
Figure 5-30. Distribution of methods used for environmental risk analysis. ................. 48
Figure 5-31. Distribution of methods used for environmental risk evaluation. ............. 49
Figure 5-32. Distribution of methods used for flow assurance risk identification. ........ 49
Figure 5-33. Distribution of methods used for flow assurance risk analysis. ............... 50
Figure 5-34. Distribution of methods used for flow assurance risk evaluation. ............ 50
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Abbreviations
API American Petroleum Institute
BHA Bottom hole assembly
CaCO3 Calcium carbonate
CBA Cost/benefit analysis
CaP Calcium aluminate phosphate
CCS Carbon capture and storage
Cl Chloride
CO2 Carbon dioxide
DF Design factor
EGS Enhanced geothermal system
EMV Expected monetary value
ERA Environmental risk assessment
ETA Event tree analysis
EU European Union
Fe Iron
FEP Features, events and processes
FMEA Failure mode and effects analysis
FMECA Failure mode, effects and criticality analysis
FTA Fault tree analysis
GEA Geothermal Energy Association
GRC Geothermal Resource Council
HACCP Hazard analysis and critical control points
HAZID Hazard identification
HAZOP Hazard and operability studies
HDR Hot dry rock
HPHT High pressure, high temperature
HRA Human reliability analysis
H2S Hydrogen sulfide
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
IEA GHG International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme
IGA International Geothermal Association
IRR Internal rate of return
ISO International Organization for Standardization
LCF Low cycle fatigue
LCM Lost circulation material
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1 Introduction
The geothermal industry is in steady growth. In 2015, geothermal energy systems produced
73.6 TWh of electricity in 24 countries [1] and 163 TWh of thermal energy [2]. In order to
accelerate the development of geothermal resources for power generation in Europe and
worldwide in a cost effective and environmentally friendly way, the European Union (EU)
has awarded the GeoWell project funding [3]. This collaborative research project (2016-
2019) aims at developing reliable, cost-effective and environmentally safe technologies for
design, completion and monitoring of high-temperature geothermal wells.
As part of the GeoWell project, work package six (WP6) “risk assessment for geothermal wells”
has the overall objective to develop risk and reliability analysis tools for assessment of both
high enthalpy wells and extreme temperature wells in volcanic areas. This WP has the
following secondary objectives:
Raise the standard of risk analysis tools for geothermal wells to a standard that is
comparable to that of oil and gas wells;
Propose a risk management framework that can be used for any deep geothermal
wells;
Evaluate and manage risks related to the introduction of new materials and tools
developed in other work packages within the GeoWell project.
In order to achieve all the WP6 objectives, existing experiences and the vast volume of
knowledge and methodologies developed in the petroleum industry will be employed.
Accordingly, the foundations for the development of new risk analysis tools and a framework
for risk assessments in the geothermal industry, more specifically for the needs of geothermal
wells, will be established.
Deliverable 6.1 is aimed at providing a state-of-the-art report covering different well integrity
issues and risk assessment methods that are currently practiced in geothermal wells. For this
purpose, a review of recently published articles and reports has been conducted. Moreover,
the “GeoWell risk assessment survey” has been prepared and sent to stakeholders dealing
with risk assessment in both the geothermal and petroleum industries. Deliverable 6.1 presents
the findings of both the literature review and the risk assessment survey.
Parallel efforts have been devoted to provide a separate deliverable from WP6 covering
practices of the petroleum industry with respect to well integrity and risk assessment methods
(D6.2). Note that D6.1 and D6.2 are complementary to each other. These deliverables share
some common topics including introduction to well integrity and risk assessment as well as the
GeoWell risk assessment survey. The main purpose for presenting common topics with similar
description in both deliverables is to enable both reports to stand independently and to provide
necessary background information that readers might need to digest the main messages of
each report.
Scope
The life cycle of a geothermal well is similar to that of an oil and gas well and can be divided
into four main phases as shown in Figure 1-1.
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Risk assessment is performed for both the initial execution of the job and the long-term
consequences of the activity for every life cycle phase. However, this deliverable mainly
focuses on methods for performing risk assessment during the well construction, production
and maintenance phases.
One may distinguish between technical and non-technical risk assessments. WP6 of the
GeoWell project addresses only technical risk assessment for geothermal wells. For
completeness, financial/economic risks for development of geothermal projects and risks
connected to personnel’s health and safety are also partly covered in D6.1.
In this work, the focus is on geothermal systems in which wells are constructed to produce
thermal power at a relatively high temperature (for electricity production). For the GeoWell
project, high-temperature issues such as thermal strains on well tubulars, corrosion,
casing/cement/formation bond are particularly relevant. As such, shallow geothermal systems
at low temperatures (typically utilizing heat pumps) are not treated in any detail.
Methodology
To carry out the literature review covering different technical risk assessment methods, a
number of articles have been reviewed. The main approach for finding relevant articles has
been to search the online database of International Geothermal Association1 (IGA) for
geothermal-related publications, as well as including other publications from various sources,
which were found to be relevant. The search words “risk” or “well integrity” have been used as
a selection basis for those papers selected in this review. There might be a weakness in this
approach as papers that primarily deal with risk methodologies, but are applied to geothermal
cases, could be published in risk-related journals (such as Journal of Risk and Reliability).
Nevertheless, there should still be a sufficient amount of papers within the geothermal
publication realm focusing, to a lesser or larger degree, on risk assessment and well integrity.
This is at least true in the petroleum industry, where numerous publications can be found when
searching for these topics in OnePetro2 (an online library of technical literature for the oil and
gas exploration and production industry). The reviewed papers are classified based on
different indicators such as 1) publication year; 2) the topics that are addressed e.g. uncertainty
quantification and well integrity; 3) different types of risks that are assessed; and 4) tools that
are used for assessing risks. It should be stressed that the classification of types of risks
addressed and risk assessment methods used are interpretations of the authors and as such
do not represent an “objective truth”.
1
https://www.geothermal-energy.org/publications_and_services/conference_paper_database.html
2
https://www.onepetro.org/
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The methodology for preparing the GeoWell risk assessment survey, covering the reasoning
for the questions, potential hypothesis, making the recipient list and data analysis
methodology, is elaborated in Section 4.
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Well integrity has been an important topic that has been investigated comprehensively for
petroleum wells. However, there are not many papers covering this topic for geothermal wells
as stated by [6].
The primary and long-term function of a geothermal well is to act as a conduit between the
surface and the underground geothermal reservoir [7]. Similar to hydrocarbon wells, the
integrity of wellbores throughout the life cycle of wells needs to be assured to provide good
zonal isolation.
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Drilling
Some geothermal wells drill a “controlled blowout”, i.e. drilling into the production zone while
the hole is producing dry steam, a conventional practice in The Geysers. In other cases,
instead of dry steam, brine inflow occurs while drilling (often a clean-out workover). This
requires special equipment and drilling tools such as high temperature wellhead/blowout
preventer (BOP) or special BOP cooling processes, and implies making connections in a hot
hole and sometimes running liners in a “live” well [8].
Geothermal wells, even within the same field, are more variable then oil and gas wells in a
specific hydrocarbon field; the resulting learning curve for geothermal wells based on
experience appears to be less useful. Development of enhanced geothermal systems often
involves hard rock drilling that is more challenging and costly compared to oil and gas drilling
[10]. The hardness of the rock is often defined as its capacity to withstand deforming loads. In
oil and gas drilling industry, 30 kpsi (about 200 MPa) unconfined compressive strength (UCS)
is by some considered as a limit to define hard rock. This criterion might be related to
technological limits, as 200 MPa is close to the limit of performance of current polycrystalline
diamond compact (PDC) drillbits in the oil and gas wells. Above this level of compressive
strength, different drilling methods are used depending on the industry. In both deep
geothermal and oil and gas industries, the typical response to hard sections is to use roller
cone bits, or to grind through the rock with impregnated diamond bits. In addition to high drilling
costs in hard rock formations, other challenges are:
High equipment wear and failure, in particular regarding the bottom hole assembly
(BHA) and the drill string, as the drill bit is exposed to strong forces during hard rock
drilling;
Low rates of penetration (ROP) and equipment lifetime;
There is also a higher risk of bit clogging or bit balling1 (as hard rocks are broken in smaller
cuttings sizes than softer rock) if cuttings removal (mud flow) is not efficient for a given bit and
formation. Although in general, hole cleaning is not a challenge for hard rock drilling, as the
ROP is low and the amount of cuttings to remove is somewhat moderate.
Different parameters affect the above-mentioned drilling challenges in hard rock formations
including rock hardness, rock abrasiveness (e.g. when quartz is part of the rock composition)
and formation heterogeneity (i.e. when formation consists of alternating layers of different rock
types, more specifically when alternating layers of hard and soft rock are in close proximity to
each other) [11]. Different evolutionary and revolutionary improvements in drilling operation
that might result in significant costs reduction, enabling access to deeper and hotter
geothermal resources are covered in [12].
With respect to drilling fluids, liquid-based drilling fluids are typically simple mixtures of fresh
water and bentonite clay (possibly also with polymer additives to clean the hole and stabilize
the wellbore) for geothermal wells, whereas oil- and saltwater-based liquids are also used for
hydrocarbon wells. In geothermal wells with high temperature environment, it is essential to
keep the drilling fluids cool to avoid alterations in mud properties. This also implies employing
special electronic tools (e.g. downhole measurement systems), not used in hydrocarbon wells,
to withstand the high temperatures. Aerated (i.e. gas-injected) mud is commonly used in low-
pressure formations where lost circulation is a problem. Drilling with air is common in places
where the reservoir produces dry steam [8], or in hot dry rock.
1 It should be noted that in general hole cleaning is not a challenge for hard rock drilling, as the ROP is low and
the amount of cuttings to remove is somewhat moderate.
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Well design
In order to have an efficient downstream energy system connected to geothermal wells, the
wells require large holes and casings, and in many cases require more casing strings than an
onshore oil well of the same depth. High drill string and casing weights imply the need for large
drilling rigs with sufficient hoisting capability. Large diameter casing and hole sizes require
large amounts of cement and more complex placement methods to be applied.
Geothermal wells also require a complicated casing design, especially for wells located in
tectonically active regions. The casing design and particularly the material of the casing, is also
complicated by temperature cycling [8].
The high-temperature environment that is common in geothermal wells has detrimental effects
on the production casing and wellhead [6]. The movement of the casing is restricted by the
presence of a cement sheath. Temperature variations, therefore, induce thermal stresses in
the casing string that may exceed the yield strength of the casing material [13]. This results in
different considerations e.g. for design and analysis of casings and couplings in geothermal
wells than in the petroleum wells [14]. As an example, changes need to be considered in case
of using working stress design (WSD) methodology that is very common to design and analyze
oil and gas wells. This method is used to analyze expected loads versus strength of the
selected casing and tubing. This design methodology assumes minimum strength and
maximum load assumptions with a safety factor (SF) to ensure a safe design. Minimum
strength is based on minimum yield strength and minimum wall thickness. Maximum expected
loads are assumed and compared to the strength to calculate the safety factor. The design
check is to have the SF equal or larger than the design factor (DF). Due to the high
temperatures of geothermal wells, the minimum yield strength is de-rated for elevated
temperatures as part of the design check [15]. Moreover, yield strength needs to be de-rated
in geothermal wells as the temperature during production is significantly above the room
temperature where minimum casing and tubing yield strengths are measured and checked. A
typical average derating factor for temperature is 5.4%/100 °C above 21 °C room temperature
(as an example minimum yield strength of casing or coupling would be de-rated by 5.4% if the
local temperature at depth is 121 °C under production condition) [15]. The combination of high
temperature fluids and high flow rates (that is desirable to produce more electricity or
heating/cooling) can induce additional stresses on the casing string in geothermal wells [16].
Production
Geothermal wells typically produce directly through the casing, instead of through a production
tubing inside the casing, as for most hydrocarbon production wells. In addition, the flow rates
are typically much higher in geothermal wells than in hydrocarbon wells. Geothermal wells may
also be exposed to corrosive fluids and face problems related to scaling, a challenge also
encountered in high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) and sour gas wells for oil and gas.
Cementing
Most geothermal wells have a complete cement sheath from bottom to surface, as opposed to
oil and gas wells, where casings typically are only cemented at the bottom (with a fluid above).
The reason is both for mechanical support during the intense temperature cycling and
protecting the casing from stress corrosion cracking due to in-situ fluids in the case of
geothermal wells [15]. Uncemented voids in casing annuli will result in casing failures; hence,
one of the primary important factors of a geothermal well is a good cement job on all casing
strings.
Geothermal cement is often lightweight (compared to conventional cement). Geothermal
cements must also be resistant to acid and CO2 attack. This has led to the use of e.g. calcium
aluminate phosphate (CaP) cement, designed for use in mildly acidic CO2-rich environments,
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and sodium silicate-activated slag (SSAS) cement, designed for use in hot, acidic
environments with low levels of CO2 [8].
Cementing can be challenging in lost circulation zones where cement can flow into the
formation, preventing cementation to the surface [17].
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Risk for loss of well control: drilling while the hole is producing dry steam, or especially
while there is brine inflow, presents a particular risk for losing well control.
Risk for lost circulation material (LCM): this often happens when the size of the fracture
aperture exceeds that of the LCM particles.
Scaling: brine chemistry may cause scaling, i.e. mineral deposits both inside and
outside the casing and in the production interval, potentially resulting in reduced flow
area.
Stress: casings and connectors may be stressed beyond the yield point due to extreme
and quick temperature cycling.
Risk of casing collapse: if water is trapped between the cement and the casing,
especially in the intervals where one casing is inside another, there is risk for casing
collapse due to volume expansion. Over-pressured zones and tectonic stresses can
also cause casing collapse [16]. This usually happens in the body of the casing and is
commonly seen in big hole completions [7].
Compression failure in casing or couplings: this failure mode is due to the loss of
mechanical integrity of the couplings, during compression under hot conditions that
would normally result in reduction in capacity of couplings to withstand tensile loading.
This mode can occur in high temperature fields and high temperature productions
conditions (with wellhead temperature exceeding 260 °C) [7].
Under-pressured formations aggravate differential sticking.
Aggravation of all the above issues due to high temperatures.
There are also specific challenges, pertaining to geothermal fluid chemistry, such as:
o Corrosion: chloride (Cl-) in the steam entering the steam turbine could cause
corrosion damage to internal turbine components.
o Electronic tool damages and health risks: H2S in the steam may degrade
sensitive electronics and poses health risks to the local population and
operating personnel.
o Fouling: the presence of H2S, NH4+ or N2 in condensed steam may cause bio-
fouling in condensers and cooling towers.
o Precipitation: hyper-saline brines require either to keep dissolved solids in
solution or to control mineral precipitation.
o Scaling and erosion: silica (Si), calcium carbonate (CaCO3) or iron (Fe) in
geothermal brines creates a potential for both formation of mineral scales and
erosion of the injection system, injection wells and heat exchangers.
o Leakage: hydrocarbon-based working fluids used in binary geothermal plants,
pose a risk of air pollution and fire, in the event of a leak.
Some of the challenges with respect to cementing is covered by WP3 of the GeoWell project,
entitled “Improved cement, ductile surface layer and composite casing”. WP4, entitled “Flexible
coupling and casing materials”, covers challenges associated with well tubulars, including
connections and material properties suitable for a high-temperature well. Finally, WP5 “Well
monitoring” deals with well integrity using downhole fiber optic sensing techniques.
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3 Risk assessment
This section is aimed at presenting definitions of risk-related keywords that are often used
throughout this document. Moreover, risk assessment and its underlying activities as part of
generic risk management frameworks are described. This section also presents the available
regulations and standards that govern risk assessments to be performed within geothermal
and petroleum industries. Finally, different risk assessment methods/techniques that have
been touched upon by the Geowell risk assessment survey are briefly introduced.
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Figure 3-1. A general framework for risk management as presented in ISO 31000:2009.
The ISO framework for risk management and risk assessment is generic and high-level, and
does not give detailed guidelines on specifically what tool or methods should be used to
achieve the overall objectives. Naturally, the specific implementations of risk assessment
frameworks will vary in accordance with the area of application. The nature of the risk and its
associated uncertainty will be different when considering areas or industries such as
petroleum, nuclear energy, space aviation, societal security or natural disasters. The actual
implementation of the risk assessment framework will also vary with the types of risk that are
the focus of the assessment. Such categories include project- and financial risks, geological
risks, barrier risks, health and safety risks, environmental risks or pressure- and wellbore risks,
and are quite different.
Examples of other high-level standards or guidelines for risk management and assessment
include OCEG “Red Book” 3.0 GRC Capability Model1, BS 31100:2011 Risk Management:
Code of practice and guidance for the implementation of BS ISO 310002, COSO:2004
Enterprise Risk Management – Integrated Framework3, FERMA:2002 A Risk Management
Standard and Solvency II4.
The petroleum industry has several standards for risk management and assessment. On the
Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS), the NORSOK Z-013 [20] standard is widely used, and
1
http://www.oceg.org/resources/red-book-3
2
http://shop.bsigroup.com/ProductDetail/?pid=000000000030228064
3
http://www.coso.org/documents/coso_erm_executivesummary.pdf
4
http://www.ferma.eu/app/uploads/2011/11/a-risk-management-standard-english-version.pdf
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has been developed by the petroleum industry. This standard has a focus towards a
quantitative risk assessment (QRA), as shown in Figure 3-2.
Figure 3-2. Risk assessment framework with a quantitative focus, as presented in NORSOK Z-013.
In quantitative risk assessments, the probability and consequence dimensions of risk are
expressed in quantitative terms, using for example risk matrices, historical data or probability
distributions, whereas in a qualitative assessment, a descriptive approach is used to express
risk. The use of these two approaches may be by design, due to a lack of available data
required to use quantitative models, or due to the complex nature of the risk or its inherent
uncertainty.
Other examples of high-level risk assessment frameworks from the industry include those from
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the nuclear industry [21] and from the
International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEA GHG) [22] for CO2
storage projects, as shown in Figure 3-3.
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Figure 3-3. Risk assessment frameworks for nuclear industry (left, IAEA 2001) [21] and for CO2 geological storage
(right, IEA GHG 2009) [22].
Regulations
Generally, most industrial activities involve hazards/risks towards humans, safety or the
environment, and thus there are laws and regulations requiring risk assessments to be
performed. Distinction should be made between directives, standards and guidelines. In the
EU, “a directive is a legislative act that sets out a goal that all EU countries must achieve.
However, it is up to the individual countries own laws on how to reach these goals” [24]. A
standard is a description of a set of activities, and constitutes a particular level in which
compliance is met. A guideline is more advisory, for example in terms of how to reach
compliance with a standard. Developments in regulations over the past decades has seen a
gradual shift from prescriptive-based regulation to performance-based regulation, where the
management is held responsible for ensuring appropriate safety systems are in place [25].
In Europe, EU directive 82/501/EEC1 (often referred to as the Seveso Directive, and its
amended post-Piper Alpha in 1996, Seveso II) concerns the control of major accident hazards
1
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:31996L0082
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
involving dangerous substances. In the United States, 29 CFR 1910.1191 “Process safety
management of highly hazardous chemicals” constitutes similar legislation. Other examples of
wide-reaching legislative acts governing risk assessment include EU Directive 89/392/EEC2,
covering safety aspects for a wide range of machinery, for which the ISO standard ISO
12100:2010 3was also developed, the UK Health and Safety at Work Act of 19744, the UK
Offshore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations of 19925, and the US Maritime Transportation
Security Act of 20046.
There are various standards pertaining to different industries. The NORSOK Z-013 standard
for Risk and Emergency Preparedness Analysis [20] is used for the petroleum industry. In the
nuclear industry the guideline NUREG/CR-2300 concerns the risk assessments for nuclear
power plants [26], while in the space industry NASA has developed guides for probabilistic risk
assessment (PRA) procedures [27]. The standard EN501267 concerns “the specification and
demonstration of reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS)” for railway
applications.
On the NCS, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) for example has requirements related
specifically to well barriers in PSA’s Facility Regulations, §48, and guidelines providing further
details, which link to specific parts of the NORSOK D-010 standard, which is the standard
covering well integrity in drilling and well operations. Other standard related to well integrity in
the petroleum industry include ISO/DIS 16530-2:2014 – Petroleum and natural gas industries
– Well integrity8 and NOG 117 – Recommended guidelines for Well Integrity9.
Many geothermal wells have been drilled to comply with the local petroleum regulations and
standards such as those set by ISO, American Petroleum Institute (API) etc. The code of
practice for deep geothermal wells (NZS 2403:2015) [28] is a standard commonly used as the
basis for designing geothermal wells.
Hodson-Clarke et al. highlighted that in an enhanced geothermal system project, design and
construction of the wells with a double barrier were performed in compliance with the South
Australian Petroleum regulations [15]. According to the authors, selection of the casing and
tubing materials as well as testing of materials for an enhanced geothermal system project in
Australia has been done using common standards for the oil and gas industry, namely ISO
15156-2, 2003 [29] and ISO 13679:2002 [30], respectively.
Lentsch et al. [16] stated that the guideline of the German economic community of oil and gas
production or “Wirtschaftsverband Erdöl- und Erdgasgewinnung e.V.” (WEG) have been used
for geothermal wells located in the Molasse Basin in the southern Germany. This standard is
commonly used for casing design of oil and gas wells in Germany. However, they mention that
because other guidelines such as NZS 2403:2015 [28] recommend different design factors,
currently used design factors for the design of wells in the southern part of the Molasse Basin
apply the stricter standard to reduce the risk of any failures.
1
https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=STANDARDS&p_id=9760
2
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX:31989L0392&qid=1458901186986
3
http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=51528
4
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37/contents
5
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/2885/contents/made
6
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ295/html/PLAW-107publ295.htm
7
http://standards.globalspec.com/std/1272146/cenelec-en-50126-1
8
http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=57056
9
https://www.norskoljeoggass.no/Global/Retningslinjer/Boring/117%20Norwegian%20Oil%20and%20Gas%20%
20recommended%20guidelines%20Well%20Integrity.pdf
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
Often, geothermal wells during drilling, construction, operation and plugging, are regulated by
mining authorities, and must comply with the specific rules of that sector. Exploitation of
geothermal resources may also fall under existing regulatory legislation and regulatory
frameworks for natural resources, hydrocarbons, geology, groundwater and planning [31]. The
cause of this is in part due to a lack of a unified terminology (in legal and regulatory acts) for
the geothermal sector.
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
Table 3-1. Different available methods and techniques for assessing risks [32]
failure. This analysis is often used in engineered systems where the components have
reliabilities, and thus has a quantitative focus. It is often an analysis that requires both time
and a high level of expertise.
As previously mentioned, some tools are more common for some areas of application, and for
assessing certain types of risks, than others. For example, in the petroleum industry on the
NCS, well integrity is strongly related to barrier analysis. Such analyses often revolve around
technical or physical barriers and the failure modes such components may encounter. Thus,
the use of e.g. FMEA/FMECA (failure mode, effects and criticality analysis) and FTA are
commonly used methods in this context. In other areas, such as the nuclear industry or the
carbon capture and storage (CCS) industry, scenarios analyses and checklists are commonly
used together with the features, events and processes (FEP) approach as stated in [33].
It is also important to emphasize that the method classification presented in ISO 31010:2009
does not represent an objective “true” classification. It is simply one way of representing an
overview of different methods for risk identification, analysis and evaluation. That does not
mean that methods not listed in the standard are inferior in any way, or that the classification
between identification, analysis and evaluation is the correct one. Monte Carlo simulation is by
many viewed as more logically belonging to analysis than evaluation, and there are also
arguments for not having many structured methods for evaluation at all, as this phase mostly
focuses on comparing analysis results with regulations, acceptance criteria, etc. It was chosen
to use ISO 31010:2009 as a basis for the survey, but allowing for adding methods not listed to
any of the three parts of the risk assessment, precisely because of the aforementioned
challenges.
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
Methodology
Hypothesis
The petroleum industry may be considered more mature than the geothermal industry, with
significantly more wells drilled, and stricter regulations. Based on this, a hypothesis that the
geothermal industry has less mature standards on risk assessments than the petroleum
industry seems reasonable. The primary purpose of the survey is to map the current application
of risk assessment methods in both geothermal and petroleum industries and to identify
differences that may let the geothermal industry raise the standard to that of the petroleum
industry.
Note that the differences in risk assessments might also be caused by:
Difference in standards between onshore and offshore wells (offshore wells are more
costly to drill and spills will spread in the water, causing harm over a larger area).
Difference between legislation and region in the world (e.g. Norwegian regulations are
considered strict compared to many other countries).
Difference between sizes of companies (not all oil companies are staffed for costly and
resource intensive assessments, or may lack personnel with expertise).
Many companies involved in the geothermal industry are also involved in petroleum. This is
particularly true for the companies providing drilling services. It is likely these companies will
apply the same methods for both the petroleum and geothermal wells they are involved in.
However, there may be differences in how the assessments are performed with respect to the
collaboration between the contractors, service providers and operators.
Reasoning for survey questions
The web based survey, attached in Appendix I, consists of 7 pages. The initial page is a simple
welcome page, explaining the background for the survey, such as the purpose of the survey,
who is performing the survey and in what context, and how the results will be used. This
provides context for the receivers of the survey, giving them confidence in the seriousness of
the survey as well as an idea of how they should respond if any of the questions are considered
ambiguous.
The second page asks for information about the respondent. As respondents may not wish to
supply personal information about themselves, the company they work for and the country they
reside in are marked as optional. Most of the questions do not actually require a response;
however, responses are expected. The reason for allowing many unanswered questions was
to get as much as possible of the questionnaire answered, and the creation of unnecessary
barriers.
The other questions on page 2 relate to the type of company and the respondent’s role in
relation to risk assessments for wells. Common company types from the industry were used
to identify their responsibilities related to wells.
Another question was posed to be able to separate the respondents working in geothermal
from those in petroleum, as well as those working offshore with those working onshore.
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
Offshore geothermal was not considered a relevant alternative. The final question on the
second page; whether the respondent performs risk assessments related to wells is a
qualifying question, intended to filter out those who would not be in a position to provide
relevant answers to the more risk specific questions. This question also served to identify who
is involved in risk assessments related to wells. Answering “No” to this question takes the
respondent to the end of the survey, where they can provide their email addresses (for future
dissemination activities) and any feedback they may have.
The third page is used to identify in which area the respondents apply risk assessments. As a
main purpose of the GeoWell project is related to well integrity, it was desirable to distinguish
assessment of downhole conditions from assessments related to the work processes. Different
areas, accompanied with a short description, are:
Health and safety risk: assessment regarding the health and safety of personnel.
Project/financial risk: risk assessment related to project execution such as delays,
timing, reputation, capital, regulatory etc.
Geological risk: assessment related to reservoir characterization uncertainty.
Geological event risk: risk assessment related to seismic events, fracking, reopening
of faults etc.
Pressure/well control risk: assessment regarding wellbore pressure control related
incidents such as lost circulation, kick, stuck pipe etc.
Equipment reliability: assessment of failure of non-barrier equipment such as drilling
tools.
Barrier reliability: assessment of the condition of integrity related equipment such as
casing and cement.
Environmental risk: assessment of environmental impact of operations.
Flow assurance: assessment related to production.
The fourth page requests the respondent to identify which methods are used in risk
identification, risk analysis and risk evaluation. These are common terms in risk management,
and definition can for example be found in ISO 31010:2009 [32]. The methods were subject to
discussion, as many different names are used for similar methods. As there was a large
number of methods, trying to group the methods by types was considered. However,
introducing new naming conventions would easily make it more difficult for the respondents to
recognize which type of methods they are using. In the end, the methods strongly applicable
to each risk assessment activity as defined in ISO 31000:2009 were used. It was believed that
most would understand which methods would apply to them. A direct use of the method as
defined in the standard would not be assumed, but the answers would at least give an
indication of the type of method. Each method was also given a tool-tip text in the survey,
giving a brief description of the method for clarification.
The fifth page breaks down the use of methods in to the different life cycle phases considered
(including drilling, completion, production and maintenance). To avoid unnecessary
alternatives, only the methods selected on the previous page were shown, as the rest should
be irrelevant.
The sixth page is similar to the fifth, breaking down which methods are applied to which areas
of application (e.g. project/financial, geological and environmental risks). Similarly, only the
previously selected methods and the previously selected areas were shown. The
comprehensiveness of this question depends on how many methods were selected earlier.
The final page of the survey informs the respondent of how the results will be communicated,
and asks whether they are interested in attending a webinar for the purpose of dissemination
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
and communication of the findings of the survey. Comments are also requested, to get
feedback on the survey and get additional information.
Selection of the recipients
As the survey was targeted to map the status of risk assessments performed in a well integrity
context in the geothermal and petroleum industries, the survey is sent to experts active in each
or both of industries.
While the list of contacts for the petroleum industry was based on an internal IRIS database,
the contact list for the geothermal industry was based on:
Contacts provided in Hirosaki University, Aomori Campus, North Japan Research
Institute for Sustainable Energy (NJRISE) (http://njrise.cc.hirosaki-
u.ac.jp/hiro/indexE.html);
Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) Database, United States
Department of Energy (US DOE), (http://www.osti.gov/geothermal/)
Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) membership list (http://geo-
energy.org/gea_members.aspx);
Geothermal Resource Council (GRC) publication database
(https://www.geothermal.org/publications.html);
Search through the paper database of IGA (International Geothermal Association) and
finding active authors in the field (https://www.geothermal-
energy.org/publications_and_services/conference_paper_database.html); and
Contacts provided by GeoWell partners.
Preparatory requirements
Prior to the risk assessment survey, different preparatory and quality assurance considerations
were made, as listed in Table 4-1.
All of the considerations listed in Table 4-1 are obvious, but the most important ones are to
create questions that serve the objectives, are simple to understand and unambiguous, and
have alternatives that are exhaustive and mutually exclusive. In addition, the survey should be
able to provide results that are of mutual interests to both recipient and the survey team.
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
Table 4-1. Different preparatory and quality assurance considerations for the survey.
Consideration Remarks Quality assurance checklist
Length of the survey All questions were discussed to see if they Can any question be excluded?
could be excluded without losing needed Is it too time consuming to complete it?
information
Reasonable and short (about 10 min
estimated by survey provider)
Simplicity As simple as possible Are all the questions simple?
Are the questions understandable for the
target audience?
Layout Clear and consistent form with the
GeoWell’s logo
Target group Relevance to the recipients and precise Is the survey clear on who the recipients are,
definition of target group and are the questions suitable for them?
Type of questions Clear and relevant Are all the questions relevant?
Are all the questions balanced?
Are all the questions unambiguous?
Will the questions provide the answers that are
desired?
Is there a combination of open and closed
questions?
Are the questions asked in a logical order?
Do the questions match the alternatives?
Type of answers Mainly multiple choices are provided. Are the alternatives exhaustive?
Alternatives based on literature sources, Are the alternatives mutually exclusive?
e.g. ISO standard. Is similar type of scale used consistently
throughout the survey?
Time for sending the The survey sent at a time that the
survey respondents have time to answer it
(during summer time).
Risk of being overlooked due to being in
summer vacation.
Results Recipients have been informed about the Is the purpose of the survey clear?
use of results. Is it clear how the results will be used?
Reminder sending One reminder was sent to those who had
not left their e-mail in the questionnaire.
Incentives use Communication of the results through a Why would the target audience complete the
planned webinar has been promised. survey?
Teaser format An e-mail invite is used as a teaser. How has the target group been informed about
Target audience incentivized by the e- the survey?
mail invite.
Communication An email account was specifically created Is there any contact information provided for
for communication with recipients of the future communication between recipients and
survey. the GeoWell team?
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
questionnaire and its collected data, respectively) as seen to the right in the figure, and some
did just not press the finish button. These results indicate that the last part of the questionnaire
was not time consuming enough to make the respondents stop, which due to the matrix
functionality of the question, was feared. Alternatively, one could argue that due to
comprehensiveness, respondents rushed through just to get finished with the survey, giving
random answers along the way. While this could of course be the case, we do not see any
arbitrariness or contradictory survey results suggesting this.
16
11
10
5 3 1 2 2 0 2 2 2 0 0 2 0 0 5 0 0 4 0 1 1 0 2 0
2,4 5,6 8,9 12,1 15,3 18,6 21,8 25,1 28,3 31,5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Duration [minutes] Question number
Figure 4-1. Registered time spent for respondents spending less than 2 hours (Left) and registered last question
answered for the unfinished responses (Right).
Only two comments on the survey itself have been received through the comment functionality.
One was particular to the mentioned matrix functionality between methods and application
area, where many combinations had to be considered if the respondent used many methods
and applied them to many areas. The respondent commented that many methods and
applications overlap, which means many boxes had to be ticked off. Knowing that filling out
parts of survey could take a lot of time in some cases makes the appreciation for their efforts
even larger.
The other comment was that too many “risk-insider” terms were used in the questionnaire, and
that this may lead to unclear results. Introducing custom categories for the methods was a
concern, as this could possibly lead to different interpretations of the categories. To ensure
consistency and traceability, the methods as mentioned in the ISO standard were used, with
tool-tip text describing the methods. However, many might not have seen the tool-tip text, or
been inclined to read it for every method. Thus, the actual methods chosen by the respondents
should only be used as indications of the risk assessments performed, rather than the
conclusive basis for use of the methods.
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
11
5 5
4 4 4 4 4
3
1 1
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Year published
The review also looked into which types of risks were addressed in each case (see Figure 5-2).
There are many ways in which risks can be categorized; in this case different categories have
been defined based on previous experience. The distribution of types of risks in the reviewed
papers are shown below. Note that many of the papers address more than one type of risk,
and the total does therefore not sum to 100%.
Page 30 of 93
D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
N/A 1,9 %
Figure 5-2 interestingly shows that the by far most addressed risk type is related to
project/financial risk, i.e. risk related to the project viability and feasibility. This differs
significantly from our impression of the focus in the oil and gas industry. The finding is probably
attributable to the fact that while there is an enormous financial upside when drilling petroleum
exploration wells, this is not the case for geothermal wells. Furthermore, the financial margins
during production are several magnitudes less than for oil and gas. In fact, when reviewing the
geothermal publications, many papers did not even define risk properly; it was implicitly taken
to be project/financial risk.
Geological risk is also a key focus area regarding risk (nearly 40% of the papers address this
area). However, this is often tightly related to project/financial risk; large uncertainties in the
resources to be exploited will consequently yield large uncertainty in the project feasibility as
well. Barrier reliability and equipment reliability, which are those areas most closely related to
well integrity, have been discussed in ca. 1/6 of the papers reviewed.
In terms of whether the papers address uncertainty quantification is also a question of interest.
In many papers the definition of risk includes the consideration of uncertainty; however, the
majority do not explicitly address how to quantify it, as shown in Figure 5-3.
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
Yes
33%
No
67%
Furthermore, we investigated the risk assessment methods used (or described) in the
reviewed papers. The basis for the types of risk assessment methods was that defined in ISO
31010: 2009; however, as that list is not exhaustive, we added method types to the list as
needed. Throughout the 54 papers, 96 mention or describe risk assessment methods. Figure
5-4 lists method types as a proportion of these 96, as an indication of how frequently each type
was used.
FMECA 3,2 %
VALUE OF INFORMATION 3,2 %
FAILURE INVESTIGATION/RISK-BASED INSPECTION/DATA… 3,2 %
HISTORICAL DATA AGGREGATION 2,1 %
SCENARIO ANALYSIS 2,1 %
CHECKLISTS 2,1 %
COST/BENEFIT ANALYSIS 2,1 %
INTERVIEWS 1,1 %
HAZID 1,1 %
FUZZY LOGIC 1,1 %
OTHER 2,1 %
N/A 21,1 %
0,0 % 5,0 % 10,0 % 15,0 % 20,0 % 25,0 %
Proportion of total number of risk assessment methods adressed in reviewed papers
Figure 5-4. An overview of different types of risk assessment methods addressed in reviewed papers.
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
In line with the findings on risk types, the most used risk assessment methods relate to financial
metrics such as net present value (NPV), expected monetary value (EMV), internal rate of
return (IRR), return on investment (ROI) and cash flow. Monte Carlo, often in conjunction with
expert elicitation and/or Bayesian analysis was also addressed in several papers. Coarse risk
ranking, such as the use of simple risk indices, consequence/probability matrices, was also a
commonly used tool. The remaining methods were rarely used. One observation was that
many of the papers did not have risk in particular as the main focus. In many cases,
geological/reservoir simulations were the focus, with some discussions of risk/uncertainty
around the calculated values, missing the context of a particular method for risk analysis. The
overall impression was that there was little consensus on common approaches to risk
assessment methods and why they were chosen. That said, the topics covered in the reviewed
papers spanned many and diverse topics.
The risk assessment methods were also grouped according to the ISO 31010: 2009 [32] in
terms of resource demands, nature of uncertainty and complexity. Where either the method
was not listed, or it was listed but not classified in ISO 31010: 2009, we applied our own
interpretation. For papers where there was no mention of any specific risk assessment method,
it was obviously not possible to perform any classification (“N/A”).
The resource demands of a risk assessment method are related to experience and capability
of the risk assessment team, organizational constraints on time and other resources, and
available budget. The nature of the uncertainty is linked to the quality, quantity and integrity of
information relating to the risk under consideration, and the availability of information about the
risk and its sources, causes and consequences.
Regarding all three dimensions (resource demands, nature of uncertainty and complexity)
there is no evidence to suggest that there is an overweight of simplistic, low-complexity
methods in use, nor of sophisticated, highly demanding tools. Figure 5-5 shows an overview
of the resource demands, nature of uncertainty and complexity in risk assessment methods
that are addressed in the reviewed papers.
41,1 %
Proportion of total number of risk assessment
34,7 % 34,7 %
methods adressed in reviewed papers
28,4 %
13,7 % 12,6 %
Figure 5-5. An overview of the resource demands, nature of uncertainty and complexity in risk assessment methods
addressed in the reviewed papers, as classified in ISO 31010:2009. N/A are papers where no specific risk
assessment method is mentioned/presented.
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
The reason that both resource demands and complexity are more weighted towards the
medium/high group, is partly due to the fact that both Monte Carlo and monetary indices have
a medium or high classification for these dimensions, and together account for a large
proportion of the total number of methods. With this in mind, it appears that the geothermal
publications concerning risk assessment methods cover a rather large span in types of
methods, covering the low/medium/high range in terms of resource demands, nature of
uncertainty and complexity.
Finally, with respect to well integrity, this topic is to a very small extent covered in the reviewed
publications. As shown in Figure 5-6, only 11% of the publications cover, to some extent, well
integrity as a topic addressed.
Yes
11%
No
89%
Very few publications we studied concern risk of loss of containment, nor risks of failures in
barriers. In fact, the term barrier is hardly mentioned, and even the papers dealing with well
integrity do so to a large extent without considering the system as comprised of barriers with
failure modes and reliabilities.
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
There is a possibility that there may be regional differences concerning how risk assessments
are performed. Some countries have stricter regulations related to the risk assessment than
others do, and different parts of the world may have different geological challenges. The
distribution of the respondents among the continents is displayed in Figure 5-8. In both Figure
5-7 and Figure 5-8, responses where no information was available have been excluded, and
those marked “other” have been interpreted and assigned to the most relevant response where
possible.
Page 35 of 93
D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
Figure 5-8 shows participation from most continents. The bulk of respondents comes from
North America and Europe, which is not surprising, as the survey was distributed mainly to
these continents. Some responses were also received from Asia and Oceania, while none
came from Africa or South America (although there were representatives from these regions
in the survey mailing list).
As many of the respondents of the survey are not performing risk assessments related to wells,
it could be interesting to see which types of companies perform risk assessments in geothermal
industry. This is shown in Figure 5-9 that also shows which types of companies have
responded to the survey.
'OPERATING COMPANY' 5 1
'GOVERNMENT AGENCY' 1 0
'EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURER' 0 1
'SERVICE PROVIDER' 2 1
'CONSULTING COMPANY' 5 6
'DRILLING CONTRACTOR' 3 0
Figure 5-9. Breakdown of the respondents based on company type, and whether or not they perform risk
assessments of wells.
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
Areas of application
Risk assessments are performed for different purposes. Figure 5-10 shows how many of the
respondents perform risk assessment in different areas. This is based on the 15 respondents
working only in the geothermal industry and perform risk assessments for wells.
As is reasonable, most companies are responsible for health and safety risk assessments. A
majority of the respondents are also performing assessments related to project/financial risk,
geological risk, pressure/well control and environmental risk. These are general areas that are
related to the business case, safety of personnel, and for the purpose of meeting regulations.
Just less than half the respondents work with risk related to barriers, geological events and
flow assurance. These are more specific areas, which might not be relevant in all cases, or are
long-term activities in the production phase.
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
PROJECT/FINANCIAL
BARRIER RELIABILITY
Operating Company
Drilling Contractor
GEOLOGICAL RISK
Consulting Company
Equipment Manufacturer
GEOLOGICAL EVENT RISK
Government Agency
Operating Company
PRESSURE/WELL CONTROL
Service Provider
ENVIRONMENTAL
FLOW ASSURANCE
OTHER
Figure 5-10. An overview of different areas for which companies perform risk assessments.
Each of these areas will be looked into more thoroughly to understand which methods are
applied.
Financial risk
Twelve respondents fully completed the survey work on financial/project risk. As seen in Figure
5-11, the by far most popular method for risk identification is brainstorming, with scenario
analysis coming second. Only seven out of the 15 listed methods were used. In Figure 5-12,
the risk analysis methods applied to financial/project risk are primarily scenario analysis,
business impact analysis and cost-benefit analysis. About half of the methods have been
applied. For evaluation of financial/project risk, Monte Carlo simulation is the primary method
used as shown in Figure 5-13.
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
3
2 2 2
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
4 4
2 2 2
0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 0
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
10
5
4
3 3
0 1 0 1 1 2 0 0 2 2 1
Figure 5-14. Distribution of methods used for health and safety risk identification.
5
4 4 4
3
2 2
0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0
Figure 5-15. Distribution of methods used for health and safety risk analysis.
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
3 3
1 1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0
Figure 5-16. Distribution of methods used for health and safety risk evaluation.
Barrier risk
Figure 5-17, Figure 5-18 and Figure 5-19 present the distribution of methods used for barrier
risk identification, analysis and evaluation, respectively. Only three respondents from the
geothermal industry selected barrier reliability.
For barrier assessments, brainstorming remains the most used risk identification method,
together with HAZOP and cause-and effect analysis. The only other method used is
consequence/probability matrices. In risk analysis HAZOP are the most used, with some
applications of root cause analysis, bow-tie analysis, cost-benefit analysis and multi-criteria
decision analysis. For risk evaluation, only root cause analysis is reported used.
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
2 2 2
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Geological risk
For identification of geological risks, brainstorming and checklists are the most used methods
as shown in Figure 5-20. Other methods are also used, but to a lesser extent. For risk analysis
(Figure 5-21), the most used methods are scenario analysis and root cause analysis. There is
less variety in the methods used compared to the previous applications with a similar number
of respondents. For risk evaluation, Monte Carlo simulations and risk indices are the most used
(see to Figure 5-22).
2 2 2
0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
3 3
2 2
1 1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 2
1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
2 2
1 1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Figure 5-23. Distribution of methods used for geological event risk identification.
1 1 1 1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Figure 5-24. Distribution of methods used for geological event risk analysis.
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D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
1 1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Figure 5-25. Distribution of methods used for geological event risk evaluation.
4 4
3 3
2
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1
Figure 5-26. Distribution of methods used for pressure/well control risk identification.
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2 2 2 2 2
0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
Figure 5-27. Distribution of methods used for pressure/well control risk analysis.
0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0
Figure 5-28. Distribution of methods used for pressure/well control risk evaluation.
Environmental risk
Methods used for environmental risk identification, analysis and evaluation are shown in Figure
5-29, Figure 5-30 and Figure 5-31, respectively. For environmental assessments, the most
used methods for risk identification are brainstorming and, not surprisingly, environmental risk
assessment (see Figure 5-29). Several of the other methods are also used. In risk analysis
(Figure 5-30), environmental risk assessments and decision tree analysis are the most used,
followed by cost-benefit analysis and root-cause analysis. For risk evaluation, which is shown
in Figure 5-31, environmental risk assessments are the primary method, with root cause
analysis coming second.
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8
7
4 4
3
2 2
1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
6 6
3 3
2 2 2 2 2 2
0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
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1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1
1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Figure 5-32. Distribution of methods used for flow assurance risk identification.
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1 1 1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Figure 5-33. Distribution of methods used for flow assurance risk analysis.
1 1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Figure 5-34. Distribution of methods used for flow assurance risk evaluation.
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little indication of this, with at least some of the operating companies involved in all the areas
mentioned in the survey.
In the literature review, monetary indices were found to be the most used method, with either
probabilistic methods or coarse risk ranking following. The questionnaire finds brainstorming
to be the most used risk identification method. Most of the identification methods are applied
across the different areas, except Delphi, human reliability analysis (HRA) and reliability
centred maintenance. The use of methods varies more between the areas of application for
risk analysis. The most used methods were HAZOP, root cause analysis, scenario analysis
and environmental risk and decision tree analysis, depending on the area of application.
Several methods were not mentioned by anyone, such as Markov analysis, Bayesian statistics
and Bayesian nets, fault tree analysis and event tree analysis (ETA). For risk evaluation, the
situation was similar to risk analysis. Depending on the area, Monte Carlo simulation, root
cause analysis, structured what-if technique (SWIFT) analysis and environmental risk analysis
were the most frequently chosen methods.
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6 Conclusions
The findings of the work presented here as part of GeoWell deliverable 6.1 are based on the
literature review and analysis of responses to the GeoWell risk assessment survey. The
conclusions can be summarized as follows:
Based on the papers reviewed, the mostly addressed risk type relates to
project/financial risk, which differs significantly from our impression of focus in the
petroleum industry. This is probably due to the fact that while there is an enormous
financial upside when drilling petroleum exploration wells, this is not the case for
geothermal wells. Furthermore, the financial margins during production of geothermal
projects are typically several magnitudes less than for oil and gas.
Another important focus area in the papers is geological risk. However, this is often
tightly related to project/financial risk; large uncertainties in the resources to be
exploited will consequently result in large uncertainty in the project feasibility as well.
Only 11% of the publications cover well integrity as a topic addressed.
Only a few publications reviewed concern risk of loss of containment, or risks of failures
in barriers. In fact, the term barrier is hardly mentioned, and even the papers dealing
with well integrity do so to a large extent without considering the system as comprised
of barriers with failure modes and reliabilities.
In the literature review, monetary indices were the most used method, with either
probabilistic methods or coarse risk ranking following.
The survey finds brainstorming to be the most used risk identification method.
The use of methods varies more between the areas of application for risk analysis. The
most used methods were HAZOP, root cause analysis, scenario analysis and
environmental risk and decision tree analysis, depending on the area.
For risk evaluation, the situation was similar to risk analysis. This is not surprising, given
that the risk evaluation is based on the risk analysis. Depending on the area, Monte
Carlo simulation, root cause analysis, structured what-if technique analysis and
environmental risk analysis were most frequently chosen methods.
Regarding the use of risk assessment methods in terms of resource demands, nature
of uncertainty and complexity, there is no evidence to suggest that there is an
overweight of simplistic, low-complexity methods in use in the geothermal industry.
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Veatch, R.W, The future of geothermal energy - Impact of enhanced geothermal
systems (EGS) on the United States in the 21st century, 2006, Massachusetts Institute
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13. Teodoriu, C., Falcone, G., Comparing completion design in hydrocarbon and
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thermal stresses. Geothermics, 2009. 38: p. 238-246.
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and possible mitigation of resultant axial strain, in European Geothermal
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15. Hodson-Clarke, A., Rudolf, R., Bour, D., Russell, P., Key factors to successful drilling
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Reservoir Engineering, 2016. Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA: Stanford
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16. Lentsch, D., Dorsch, K., Sonnleitner, N., Schubert, A., Prevention of casing failures in
ultra-deep geothermal wells (Germany), in World Geothermal Congress, 2015.
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17. Goodman, M.A., Lost circulation experience in geothermal Wells, in International
Geothermal Drilling and Completions Technology Conference1981, Office of Scientific
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systems: A factbook on geothermal power’s risks and methods to mitigate them, 2014,
Geothermal Energy Association (GEA).
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International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
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Norwegian Technology Centre (NTC): Oslo, Norway.
21. De Castro, S., Gasper, J.A., Gasper, J.K., Gessler, A., Gomez-Cobo, A., Labroille, S.,
Langlois, L., Lawrence, G., Mazour, T., Nettleship, D., Pakan, M., Na, J.H., Surendar,
Ch., Risk management: A tool for improving nuclear power plant performance, 2001,
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22. Korre, A., Durucan, S, A review of the international state of the art in risk assessment
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23. Heijnen, L., Rijkers, R., Ohmann, R.G, Management of geological and drilling risks of
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25. Rausand, M., Risk assessment: Theory, methods, and applications, 2013, Hoboken,
New Jersey, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
26. USNRC, PRA procedures guide: A guide to the performance of probabilistic risk
assessments for nuclear power plants (NUREG/CR-2300), 1983, Washington, D.C.,
USA: Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(USNRC).
27. Stamatelatos, M., Dezfuli, H, Probabilistic risk assessment procedures guide for NASA
managers and practitioners, 2011, NASA: Washington, D.C., USA.
28. NZS, NZS 2403:2015 -- Code of practice for deep geothermal wells (Superseding NZS
2403:1991) 2015, Standards New Zealand.
29. ISO, ISO 15156-2:2003 Petroleum and natural gas industries – Materials for use in
H2S-containing environments in oil and gas production -- Part 2: Cracking-resistant
carbon and low alloy steels, and the use of cast irons, 2003, the International
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30. ISO, ISO 13679:2002 Petroleum and natural gas industries – Procedures for testing
casing and tubing connections, 2002, the International Organization for Standardization
(ISO).
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projects/files/projects/documents/gtr-h_final_gtr_h_framework.pdf.
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32. ISO, IEC/ISO 31010 Risk management – Risk assessment techniques, 2009, the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
33. Savage, D., Maul, P.R., Benbow, S., Walke, R.C, A generic FEP database for the
assessment of of long-term performance and safety of the geologic storage of CO 2,
2004, Quintessa Report QRS-1060A-1. p. 73.
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Appendices
Appendix I: The GeoWell risk assessment survey
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1 Company Information
Company Name (Optional) (1)
Country (Optional) (2)
4 Is your company responsible for performing risk assessments in the context of well
operations?
Yes (1)
No (2)
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6 Which of the following methods are used for risk identification at your company?
Brainstorming (1)
Interviews (Structured or Semi-structured) (2)
Delphi (3)
Checklists (4)
PHA (Preliminary Hazard Analysis) (5)
HAZOP (HAZard and Operability studies) (6)
HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) (7)
SWIFT (Structured What-If Technique) (8)
Scenario Analysis (9)
FMEA/FMECA (Failure Mode and Effect (and Criticality) Analysis) (10)
Cause-and-Effect Analysis (11)
HRA (Human Reliability Analysis) (12)
Reliability Centred Maintenance (13)
Environmental Risk Assessment (14)
Consequence/Probability Matrix (15)
Other Methods (Please Specify) (16) ____________________
7 Which of the following methods are used for risk analysis at your company?
HAZOP (HAZard and Operability studies) (1)
HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) (2)
SWIFT (Structured What-If Technique) (3)
Scenario Analysis (4)
Business Impact Analysis (5)
Root Cause Analysis (6)
FMEA/FMECA (Failure Mode and Effect (and Criticality) Analysis) (7)
Fault Tree Analysis (8)
Event Tree Analysis (9)
Cause-and-Effect Analysis (10)
LOPA (Layer of Protection Analysis) (11)
HRA (Human Reliability Analysis) (12)
Bow-Tie Analysis (13)
Reliability Centred Maintenance (14)
Markov Analysis (15)
Bayesian Statistics and Bayes Nets (16)
Environmental Risk Assessment (17)
Decision Tree Analysis (18)
FN Curves (19)
Risk Indices (20)
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8 Which of the following methods are used for risk evaluation at your company?
HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) (1)
SWIFT (Structured What-If Technique) (2)
Root Cause Analysis (3)
FMEA/FMECA (Failure Mode and Effect (and Criticality) Analysis) (4)
Reliability Centred Maintenance (5)
Monte Carlo Simulation (6)
Bayesian Statistics and Bayes Nets (7)
Environmental Risk Assessment (8)
FN Curves (9)
Risk Indices (10)
Other Methods (Please Specify) (11) ____________________
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Please specify the phases you perform risk management methods. Note that every phases
also include pre-planning prior to execution.
9 Please check the corresponding phases you perform risk identification methods:
Drilling Completion Production Maintenace
Risks that are selected in Q.6
10 Please check the corresponding phases you perform risk analysis methods:
Drilling Completion Production Maintenace
Risks that are selected in Q.7
11 Please check the corresponding phases you perform risk evaluation methods:
Drilling Completion Production Maintenace
Risks that are selected in Q.8
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12 Please check the corresponding risks you apply the risk identification methods:
Risks that are selected in risks that are selected in Q.5
Q.5
Methods that are selected in Q.6
13 Please check the corresponding risks you apply the risk analysis methods:
Risks that are selected in risks that are selected in Q.5
Q.5
Methods that are selected in Q.7
14 Please check the corresponding risks you apply the risk evaluation methods
Risks that are selected in risks that are selected in Q.5
Q.5
Methods that are selected in Q.8
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15 Please provide your email address here if you are interested in participating in a webinar
presenting the findings of this survey.
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1 - Company Information
Please note that because of confidentiality issues, these information are excluded from the
report.
Answer % Count
Operating Company 22.45% 11
Drilling Contractor 8.16% 4
Service Provider 20.41% 10
Consulting Company 44.90% 22
Equipment Manufacturer 10.20% 5
Government Agency 6.12% 3
University, Research Institute or Laboratory 12.24% 6
Other (Please Specify) 4.08% 2
Total 100% 49
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Answer % Count
Onshore Geothermal 79.59% 39
Offshore Petroleum 36.73% 18
Onshore Petroleum 30.61% 15
Other (Please Specify) 14.29% 7
Total 100% 49
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4 - Is your company responsible for performing risk assessments in the context of well
operations?
Answer % Count
Yes 65.31% 32
No 34.69% 17
Total 100% 49
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Answer % Count
Health and Safety Risk 80.65% 25
Project/Financial Risk 67.74% 21
Geological Risk 61.29% 19
Geological Event Risk 35.48% 11
Pressure/Well Control Risk 74.19% 23
Equipment Reliability 48.39% 15
Barrier Reliability 38.71% 12
Environmental Risk 77.42% 24
Flow Assurance 32.26% 10
Other (Please Specify) 9.68% 3
Total 100% 31
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6 - Which of the following methods are used for risk identification at your company?
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Answer % Count
Brainstorming 80.77% 21
Interviews (Structured or Semi-structured) 46.15% 12
Delphi 3.85% 1
Checklists 61.54% 16
PHA (Preliminary Hazard Analysis) 23.08% 6
HAZOP (HAZard and Operability studies) 42.31% 11
HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) 3.85% 1
SWIFT (Structured What-If Technique) 15.38% 4
Scenario Analysis 53.85% 14
FMEA/FMECA (Failure Mode and Effect (and Criticality) Analysis) 23.08% 6
Cause-and-Effect Analysis 38.46% 10
HRA (Human Reliability Analysis) 7.69% 2
Reliability Centred Maintenance 3.85% 1
Environmental Risk Assessment 57.69% 15
Consequence/Probability Matrix 38.46% 10
Other Methods (Please Specify) 15.38% 4
Total 100% 26
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7 - Which of the following methods are used for risk analysis at your company?
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Answer % Count
HAZOP (HAZard and Operability studies) 42.31% 11
HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) 0.00% 0
SWIFT (Structured What-If Technique) 19.23% 5
Scenario Analysis 57.69% 15
Business Impact Analysis 34.62% 9
Root Cause Analysis 46.15% 12
FMEA/FMECA (Failure Mode and Effect (and Criticality) Analysis) 19.23% 5
Fault Tree Analysis 15.38% 4
Event Tree Analysis 19.23% 5
Cause-and-Effect Analysis 34.62% 9
LOPA (Layer of Protection Analysis) 3.85% 1
HRA (Human Reliability Analysis) 3.85% 1
Bow-Tie Analysis 23.08% 6
Reliability Centred Maintenance 0.00% 0
Markov Analysis 0.00% 0
Bayesian Statistics and Bayes Nets 7.69% 2
Environmental Risk Assessment 38.46% 10
Decision Tree Analysis 30.77% 8
FN Curves 7.69% 2
Risk Indices 15.38% 4
Consequence/Probability Matrix 38.46% 10
CBA (Cost/Benefit Analysis) 19.23% 5
MCDA (Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis) 7.69% 2
Other Methods (Please Specify) 15.38% 4
Total 100% 26
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8 - Which of the following methods are used for risk evaluation at your company?
Answer % Count
HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) 4.17% 1
SWIFT (Structured What-If Technique) 29.17% 7
Root Cause Analysis 45.83% 11
FMEA/FMECA (Failure Mode and Effect (and Criticality) Analysis) 16.67% 4
Reliability Centred Maintenance 4.17% 1
Monte Carlo Simulation 45.83% 11
Bayesian Statistics and Bayes Nets 8.33% 2
Environmental Risk Assessment 41.67% 10
FN Curves 8.33% 2
Risk Indices 16.67% 4
Other Methods (Please Specify) 25.00% 6
Total 100% 24
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9 - Please check the corresponding phases you perform risk identification methods:
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10 - Please check the corresponding phases you perform risk analysis methods:
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11 - Please check the corresponding phases you perform risk evaluation methods:
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12 - Please check the corresponding risks you apply the risk identification methods:
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Question Health Project/Fina Geological Geological Pressure/We Equipment Barrier Environm Flow Other (Please Total
and ncial Risk Risk Event Risk ll Control Reliability Reliability ental Assura Specify)
Safety Risk Risk nce
Risk
Brainstorming 89.47% 63.16% 52.63% 26.32% 68.42% 31.58% 36.84% 78.95% 31.58% 10.53% 19
Interviews (Structured or 72.73% 36.36% 36.36% 18.18% 63.64% 36.36% 27.27% 45.45% 27.27% 9.09% 11
Semi-structured)
Delphi 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1
Checklists 76.92% 46.15% 53.85% 38.46% 69.23% 46.15% 23.08% 61.54% 23.08% 7.69% 13
PHA (Preliminary 50.00% 16.67% 50.00% 16.67% 50.00% 16.67% 33.33% 33.33% 0.00% 0.00% 6
Hazard Analysis)
HAZOP (HAZard and 72.73% 27.27% 27.27% 27.27% 63.64% 36.36% 54.55% 54.55% 18.18% 0.00% 11
Operability studies)
HACCP (Hazard 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1
Analysis and Critical
Control Points)
SWIFT (Structured 50.00% 25.00% 50.00% 25.00% 50.00% 25.00% 50.00% 75.00% 50.00% 0.00% 4
What-If Technique)
Scenario Analysis 63.64% 45.45% 27.27% 18.18% 81.82% 27.27% 27.27% 54.55% 18.18% 18.18% 11
FMEA/FMECA (Failure 33.33% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 33.33% 66.67% 33.33% 0.00% 16.67% 16.67% 6
Mode and Effect (and
Criticality) Analysis)
Cause-and-Effect 60.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 90.00% 30.00% 60.00% 60.00% 40.00% 10.00% 10
Analysis
HRA (Human Reliability 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1
Analysis)
Reliability Centred 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0
Maintenance
Environmental Risk 58.33% 33.33% 25.00% 25.00% 33.33% 16.67% 16.67% 100.00% 25.00% 8.33% 12
Assessment
Consequence/Probabilit 83.33% 66.67% 50.00% 0.00% 66.67% 33.33% 83.33% 66.67% 16.67% 33.33% 6
y Matrix
Other Methods (Please 50.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 50.00% 25.00% 25.00% 25.00% 0.00% 25.00% 4
Specify)
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13 - Please check the corresponding risks you apply the risk analysis methods:
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Question Health Project/Fin Geological Geological Pressure/Well Equipment Barrier Environment Flow Other Total
and ancial Risk Risk Event Risk Control Risk Reliability Reliability al Risk Assurance (Please
Safety Specify)
Risk
HAZOP (HAZard and 81.82% 36.36% 27.27% 27.27% 54.55% 36.36% 63.64% 45.45% 18.18% 9.09% 11
Operability studies)
HACCP (Hazard Analysis 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0
and Critical Control
Points)
SWIFT (Structured What- 60.00% 40.00% 40.00% 20.00% 60.00% 20.00% 60.00% 80.00% 40.00% 0.00% 5
If Technique)
Scenario Analysis 41.67% 58.33% 41.67% 16.67% 50.00% 8.33% 25.00% 50.00% 8.33% 16.67% 12
Business Impact Analysis 37.50% 87.50% 37.50% 12.50% 25.00% 25.00% 12.50% 50.00% 37.50% 0.00% 8
Root Cause Analysis 54.55% 9.09% 27.27% 27.27% 72.73% 36.36% 27.27% 36.36% 18.18% 18.18% 11
FMEA/FMECA (Failure 40.00% 20.00% 0.00% 0.00% 40.00% 40.00% 40.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 5
Mode and Effect (and
Criticality) Analysis)
Fault Tree Analysis 50.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 75.00% 50.00% 75.00% 50.00% 25.00% 25.00% 4
Event Tree Analysis 40.00% 0.00% 20.00% 0.00% 80.00% 40.00% 100.00% 40.00% 20.00% 40.00% 5
Cause-and-Effect 33.33% 33.33% 33.33% 33.33% 44.44% 22.22% 44.44% 44.44% 22.22% 33.33% 9
Analysis
LOPA (Layer of 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1
Protection Analysis)
HRA (Human Reliability 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1
Analysis)
Bow-Tie Analysis 60.00% 40.00% 20.00% 40.00% 60.00% 40.00% 40.00% 40.00% 20.00% 20.00% 5
Reliability Centred 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0
Maintenance
Markov Analysis 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0
Bayesian Statistics and 100.00 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00% 0.00% 100.00% 1
Bayes Nets %
Environmental Risk 66.67% 33.33% 22.22% 22.22% 33.33% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 9
Assessment
Decision Tree Analysis 28.57% 71.43% 42.86% 14.29% 28.57% 14.29% 28.57% 57.14% 42.86% 0.00% 7
FN Curves 50.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 50.00% 0.00% 100.00% 50.00% 0.00% 50.00% 2
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Risk Indices 75.00% 75.00% 50.00% 25.00% 75.00% 50.00% 75.00% 50.00% 50.00% 25.00% 4
Consequence/Probability 88.89% 77.78% 55.56% 33.33% 66.67% 44.44% 66.67% 77.78% 33.33% 22.22% 9
Matrix
CBA (Cost/Benefit 25.00% 50.00% 0.00% 25.00% 75.00% 25.00% 50.00% 25.00% 25.00% 0.00% 4
Analysis)
MCDA (Multi-Criteria 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1
Decision Analysis)
Other Methods (Please 100.00 25.00% 25.00% 25.00% 25.00% 25.00% 50.00% 75.00% 25.00% 25.00% 4
Specify) %
Page 83 of 93
D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
14 - Please check the corresponding risks you apply the risk evaluation methods
Page 84 of 93
D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
Question Health Project/Financial Geological Geological Pressure/Well Equipment Barrier Environmental Flow Other Total
and Risk Risk Event Risk Control Risk Reliability Reliability Risk Assurance (Please
Safety Specify)
Risk
HACCP (Hazard 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1
Analysis and
Critical Control
Points)
SWIFT 42.86% 57.14% 42.86% 42.86% 42.86% 14.29% 42.86% 28.57% 14.29% 0.00% 7
(Structured
What-If
Technique)
Root Cause 50.00% 10.00% 0.00% 10.00% 60.00% 20.00% 20.00% 30.00% 10.00% 10.00% 10
Analysis
FMEA/FMECA 50.00% 25.00% 0.00% 0.00% 25.00% 50.00% 25.00% 25.00% 0.00% 0.00% 4
(Failure Mode
and Effect (and
Criticality)
Analysis)
Reliability 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1
Centred
Maintenance
Monte Carlo 11.11% 77.78% 33.33% 11.11% 33.33% 11.11% 33.33% 22.22% 22.22% 22.22% 9
Simulation
Bayesian 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00% 0.00% 100.00% 1
Statistics and
Bayes Nets
Environmental 62.50% 25.00% 25.00% 25.00% 37.50% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 8
Risk Assessment
FN Curves 50.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 50.00% 0.00% 100.00% 50.00% 0.00% 50.00% 2
Risk Indices 50.00% 75.00% 75.00% 25.00% 75.00% 0.00% 25.00% 50.00% 25.00% 0.00% 4
Other Methods 83.33% 33.33% 33.33% 33.33% 50.00% 33.33% 66.67% 66.67% 33.33% 16.67% 6
(Please Specify)
Page 85 of 93
D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
15 - Please provide your email address here if you are interested in participating in a webinar
presenting the findings of this survey:
Please note that because of confidentiality issues, these information are excluded from the
report.
Page 86 of 93
D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
# Paper title Authors Year Type of risks Uncertain Type of Method Well
assessed/cove ty integrity
red quantifica covered
tion
1 Integrated risk assessment for Lowry, T.S., Kalinina, 2012 Project/financi Yes Monte Carlo No
geothermal energy E., Hadgu, T., al risk
development and evaluation McKenna, S.A., Cutler,
L.
4 Geothermal play fairway Garchar, L., Badgett, 2016 Project/financi Yes Value of No
analysis: Phase i summary A., Nieto, A., Young, al risk information
K., Hass, E., Weathers,
Geological risk Bayesian
M.
analysis
Fuzzy Logic
Multi-Criteria
Decision Making
Expert
Elicitation
5 Risk of seismicity from Horowitz, F.G, and 2016 Geological Yes Other - Coarse No
potential direct-use Appalachian Basin event risk risk
operations in the appalachian GPFA Team categorization
basin geothermal play fairway based on
project seismic
evaluations
Page 87 of 93
D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
# Paper title Authors Year Type of risks Uncertain Type of Method Well
assessed/cove ty integrity
red quantifica covered
tion
10 Geologic risks assessment and Suryantini, Wibowo, 2015 Geological risk No Checklists No
quantification in geothermal H.
Probability
exploration case studies in
assessments
green field and developed
prospects
12 Management of geological Heijnen, L., Rijkers, R., 2015 Project/financi Yes Checklists No
and drilling risks of Ohmann, R.G. al risk
Consequence/pr
geothermal projects in the
Geological risk obability matrix
Netherlands
Pressure/well Decision Tree
control risk Analysis
13 Cooperation in geothermal Hayashi, M., Kuge, K., 2015 Project/financi Yes Internal rate of No
development at Great Rift Sato, H., Tanaka, H. al risk return (IRR)
Valley in Africa
Monte Carlo
15 Innovative Approach for risk Fausto batini1 and 2010 Geological risk Yes Risk indices No
Assessment in Green Field Jan-Diederik van
Project/financi Cost/benefit
Geothermal Project Wees
al risk analysis
Environmental Monte Carlo
risk
Decision Tree
Analysis
Expert
Elicitation
17 Private and state risk Kreuter, H., Schrage, 2009 Project/financi No N/A No
mitigation programs for C. al risk
geothermal exploration risk
Page 88 of 93
D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
# Paper title Authors Year Type of risks Uncertain Type of Method Well
assessed/cove ty integrity
red quantifica covered
tion
21 Risk management and Homuth, S., Palsson, 2010 Geological risk No Historical data Yes
contingency planning for the B., Holmgeirsson, S., to set
Geological
first icelandic deep drilling Sass, I. probabilities
event risk
project well in Krafla, Iceland
Scenario
Pressure/well
analysis
control risk
Expert
Equipment
Elicitation
reliability
Consequence/pr
Barrier
obability matrix
reliability
25 When smaller is better — Elíasson, L., Smith, C. 2011 Project/financi No Internal rate of No
Cost/size/risk analysis of al risk return (IRR)
geothermal projects
NPV
Page 89 of 93
D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
# Paper title Authors Year Type of risks Uncertain Type of Method Well
assessed/cove ty integrity
red quantifica covered
tion
26 Modeling the risk of Lowry, T.S., Kalinina, 2011 Project/financi Yes NPV No
geothermal energy E., Hadgu, T., al risk
Sensitivity
production using GT-Mod McKenna S.A.
Geological risk analysis
27 Risk management for Black, P., Fitzgerald, 2012 Project/financi Yes Probabilistic No
recoverable thermal energy M., Sully, M., Klingel, al risk decision analysis
using a probabilistic decision E.
Value of
analysis approach
information
Monte Carlo
30 Prevention of casing failures Lentsch, D., Dorsch, 2015 Geological risk No FMECA Yes
in ultra-deep geothermal K., Sonnleitner, N.,
Pressure/well
wells (Germany) Schubert, A.
control risk
Equipment
reliability
Barrier
reliability
32 Comparing completion design Teodoriu, C., Falcone, 2009 Equipment No FEM for casing Yes
in hydrocarbon and G. reliability fatigue
geothermal wells: The need to
Barrier
evaluate the integrity of
reliability
casing connections subject to
thermal stresses
Page 90 of 93
D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
# Paper title Authors Year Type of risks Uncertain Type of Method Well
assessed/cove ty integrity
red quantifica covered
tion
37 Preliminary technical risk McVeigh, J., Cohen, J., 2007 Project/financi Yes Expert No
analysis for the geothermal Vorum, M., Porro, G., al risk Elicitation
technologies program Nix, G.
Consequence/pr
obability matrix
Page 91 of 93
D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
# Paper title Authors Year Type of risks Uncertain Type of Method Well
assessed/cove ty integrity
red quantifica covered
tion
40 Report on the U.S. DOE Young, K.R., 2010 Project/financi Yes Monte Carlo No
geothermal technologies Augustine, C., al risk
Expert
program’s - 2009 risk analysis Anderson, A.
Elicitation
41 Risk assessment for Lentsch, D., Schubert, 2013 Project/financi Yes Monte Carlo No
geothermal wells — A A. al risk
Expert
probabilistic approach to time
Elicitation
and cost estimation
Sensitivity
analysis
46 Enhanced Geothermal System Rijkers, R., van der 2013 Flow Yes Monte Carlo No
in the Lower Carboniferous in Hoorn, K., van assurance
Internal Rate of
the Netherlands – a geological Gijtenbeek, K.
Geological risk Return (IRR)
risk and modelling study Ohmann, R.G.,
Nitters, G., Rombout, Project/financi
B., Spiers, C., de al risk
Zwart. ,B.
Page 92 of 93
D6.1 Well integrity risk assessment in geothermal wells
# Paper title Authors Year Type of risks Uncertain Type of Method Well
assessed/cove ty integrity
red quantifica covered
tion
47 Geothermal resource risk in Sanyal, S.K., Morrow, 2011 Project/financi No Data review No
indonesia – a statistical J.W., Jayawardena, al risk
inquiry M.S., Berrah, N., Li,
S.F., Suryadarma
49 MeProRisk-II - A joint research Marquart, G., Clauser, 2013 Geological risk Yes Monte Carlo No
project for optimization C. and the MeProRisk
Pressure/well
strategies and risk analysis for Research Consortium
control risk
deep geothermal reservoirs
50 Modeling contribution to risk Vogt, C., Iwanowski- 2013 Geological risk Yes Monte Carlo No
assessment of thermal Strahser, K.,
production power for Marquart, G., Arnold,
geothermal reservoirs J., Mottaghy, D.,
Pechnig, R., Gnjezda,
D., Clauser, C.
51 Quantifcation of geothermal Sanyal, S.K., Morrow, 2010 Geological risk Yes Sensitivity No
resource risk — A practical J.W. analysis
Project/financi
perspective
al risk Internal Rate of
Return (IRR)
Monte Carlo
52 Resource risk assessment in Hadi, J., Quinlivan, P., 2010 Project/financi No N/A No
geothermal greenfield Ussher, G., Alamsyah, al risk
development; An economic O., Pramono, B.,
Geological risk
implications Masri, A.
54 Occupational risk assessment Daniel, C., Guadalupe, 2012 Health and No HAZID No
for hydrogen sulfide G., Nayeli, M. Safety risk
Interviews
concentrations from a
geothermal power plant Consequence/pr
obability matrix
Page 93 of 93