New solution to save damaged oil wells saves tens of billions of dong

Photo caption — Project manager, engineer Nguyen Quoc Hung shares about the award. Photo: Dieu Thuy/VNA

This project helps solve difficult problems in the oil and gas industry, restoring damaged wells at low cost and high safety, effectively meeting practical requirements in production.

During the process of oil and gas exploitation in Vietnam, many oil wells after a long period of operation or due to objective factors lead to punctured production pipes, punctured production casings or blockages, making it impossible to continue exploitation. This causes a sharp decrease in the amount of oil exploited, and may even require stopping exploitation. Restoring the operation of these wells is often very difficult, because all old completion equipment must be recovered and replaced with a new system. Well repair work always has unpredictable risks, leading to high costs, high risks and long well repair time.

Project manager, engineer Nguyen Quoc Hung said that the group set a goal of finding a more effective well repair solution, without having to replace the entire equipment while still ensuring technical safety and restoring production output, ensuring future well intervention. Based on that reality, the group deployed a test at a specific well of the Vietnam National Energy Industry Group; at the same time, proposed a "technical equipment complex" that allows connecting the new completion set to the old well completion set (the usable part). Thanks to that, there is no need to pull the entire complex equipment system under the well to the surface while still achieving the goal of putting the well back into production and ensuring future well intervention. This solution helps to establish a new production casing column, connecting the new completion set to the completion equipment left under the well so that the gas lift method can be used, improving the oil recovery factor.

The success of the project is the result of a practical test at the PL-1P oil well in the Pearl field, offshore the Cuu Long basin, East Sea of Vietnam. After only nearly 20 days of repair, engineers brought the well back into production with an oil output of 1,830 barrels/day - three times higher than the initial estimate. The cost of repairing the well was also reduced by 850,000 USD (at the time of construction) compared to the old plan thanks to not having to replace all internal equipment and shortening the time of using the drilling rig.

Engineer Nguyen Van Khuong, co-director of the project, said that by retaining the usable equipment, the research team not only saved time and money but also significantly reduced technical risks. More importantly, after the repair, the well still operated stably and achieved very high output.

According to the research team, the results of the project show that Vietnam is fully capable of mastering techniques that used to depend on foreign experts and imported equipment. The self-design and successful implementation of the well repair solution not only opens up a new direction for the domestic oil and gas industry, but also helps reduce dependence on foreign technology, and can be flexibly applied to many oil wells with similar problems.

Commenting on Resolution 57-NQ/TW of the Politburo , with the goal of developing science, technology and innovation associated with practice, engineer Nguyen Quoc Hung said that this is a major shift in awareness and mechanism for science and technology. The Party and State's focus on innovation and increased engagement with production practices is considered an important driving force to promote scientific research activities in the direction of application. According to engineer Nguyen Quoc Hung, if existing mechanisms are completed and operated effectively, the connection between scientists and businesses is strengthened, applied research projects will have the conditions to promote their value in a practical way, and be replicated faster and more effectively.

Source: https://doanhnghiepvn.vn/cong-nghe/giai-phap-moi-cuu-gieng-dau-hu-hong-tiet-kiem-hang-chuc-ty-dong/20250530073039065