An Updated Research On Methods and Potential Area For Re-Utilization of Non-Commercial Oil and Gas Well In Indonesia

Indonesia has thousands of mature oilfields that have been exploited for many years and reaching the end of productive life. Some of the wells have a high percentage of water-cut with above 95% and categorized as high pressure and high temperature well with current status is abandoned or plan to be abandoned later. Since most of the mature oilfields have the potential to be identified as low-medium temperature geothermal resources, the produced water-cut can be utilized as the working fluid for the geothermal power plants. The idea of using old oilfield wells for geothermal power generation has long been studied and discussed around the world in order to reduce the operating costs of oil and gas production and to prolong the life of an oil field that is nearing the end of its production life.

This paper aims to explain and discuss the possibility of utilizing mature oilfields for geothermal energy production in support of clean energy and also consider the status quo for its limitation in technology, technical personnel, policies, and mapping potential applicable fields. Since several methods have been studied and implemented globally, this paper will do the analogue approach based on literature review, also data collection from national stakeholders and developers. The abandoned oil and gas wells can provide a wealth of information for well depth distribution, geological and reservoir characterization, including borehole temperature, information of porosity, permeability, also petrophysical and lithostratigraphic logs. This information, along with the temperature gradient and geothermal play type that commonly is on the hot sedimentary aquifers, is used to assess geothermal systems and their energy potential in this study.

This research also mapped the advantage and challenges of repurposing the oil and gas well and continued with review and summarize on current key commercial methods and technologies worldwide and their respective well selection principle.

The results of this study are expected to become guidelines to support the acceleration of this method to be implemented in Indonesia, also become a consideration for the Government of Indonesia to create supportive regulation in welcoming applications and attract investors related to the repurposing of oil and gas for geothermal electricity.