Plug and abandonment practices and trends: A British Columbia perspective

We present a review of plug and abandonment (P&A) practices in onshore wells, with a particular focus on British Columbia (BC). Regulatory and operational practices are reviewed as well as data on the wells of BC. This data set (of approximately 25,000 wells) has wider significance as it consists most recently of pad-drilled unconventional gas wells, with significant horizontal extent, multi-stage fractured. The oldest of these wells and other vertical/deviated well stock are currently being abandoned. The data reveals a large wave of abandonments coming in the next decade and a significant increase in reported SCVF over the past decade, which will lead to rising P&A costs.