Paper: Surface Casing Cementing With Energized Slurries

The main purpose of surface strings is to keep the produced well fluids from migrating into and damaging the shallow water bearing formations. In the Indian Basin Field in southern New Mexico (Eddy County), an operator was encountering severe lost circulation intervals which made properly cementing the surface strings extremely difficult. Several expensive annular top out stages were required to fill the annulus with cement adequate to protect the groundwater and isolate this interval from oil and gas produced from the drilling of the deeper horizons. After discussion with the service company and the New Mexico Oil & Gas Commission, an unorthodox method of cementing surface strings was successfully tried and adopted to solve this problem. This method included using conventional cement foamed with nitrogen to achieve a properly cemented annulus without the need for annular top out jobs. This paper will detail how this problem was successfully addressed.