BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 6. Spanish Enagas company has completed the permanent sealing of the 13 wells at the Castor storage facility by installing three plugs in each one, the company said on October 5.
This follows the agreement adopted by the Council of Ministers on 31 October 2019 for the permanent sealing and decommissioning of the wells.
Reportedly, the total estimated cost of permanently sealing the wells at the Castor underground storage facility is 241 million euros, pending receipt of the final certifications.
“These well operations are highly complex and require a high level of technical expertise. They involved deploying the Noble Resolve jack-up floating offshore platform to install the barriers that guarantee the wells’ permanent sealing and restore the natural geological conditions that ensure permanent isolation,” said the company.
Enagas noted that sealing the wells marks the completion of one of the most significant stages of the process, which began with the technical hibernation of the storage facility.
“The site is now ready for the final phase of plugging and abandonment of offshore and onshore surface facilities,” said the company.
The Spanish company said that in addition to the subsea wells, the Castor storage facility comprises two surface installations: an onshore operations centre in the municipality of Vinaròs (Castellón), and an offshore structure situated in Spanish territorial waters, 21.6 km off the Mediterranean coast.
“The offshore installation consists of a Wellhead Platform (WHP) and a Process, Utilities and Quarters Platform (PUQ), which are connected by a gangway. The 13 wells extended down from the WHP to the storage facility: 8 production wells, 4 monitoring wells and 1 fluid reinjection well,” said Enagas.
The Castor underground gas storage facility is located beneath the Mediterranean Sea, around 21.6 km off the coast of Vinaròs in Spain’s Castellón province. The project was designed to store natural gas in an offshore reservoir and was planned to have 1.3 billion cubic metres of working gas capacity, plus 600 million cubic metres of cushion gas. The facility comprises 13 wells and is connected to an onshore operating plant in Vinaròs by a 30.3-km gas pipeline.
Castor was placed into hibernation in 2014 after its concession was terminated amid complex technical and safety considerations. Enagás Transporte was subsequently assigned responsibility for maintaining and administering the facility. In October 2019, Spain’s Council of Ministers decided to end the hibernation and ordered the permanent sealing and abandonment of the wells as the first stage of the facility’s dismantling.
