It is very common today to read about shutting-in of producing oil and gas wells to reflect the reality there are fewer and fewer places to store oil right now. An old oilfield maxim-the cheapest storage is in the ground. It wasn’t coined to meet the criteria that are extant today as regards surface storage limitations, but rather to reflect costs of production versus sales prices. As we are all learning though, these two scenarios are very much related. I get a lot of questions from readers of my articles, and students in my Reservoir Drill-In Fluids design classes about what happens with oil and gas wells that are shut-in. As discussed, there is a lot of this going on right now due to the oil glut we are experiencing. That answer is generally, that there are definite problems associated with doing this, but it’s not guaranteed they will […]