Recent technical and logistical challenges in the Gulf of Thailand have driven the development of a new approach to lightweight cementing. The industry has evolved from numerous and complicated dry cement blends being used on 45-day well constructions to the present minimum liquid additive, lightweight, single slurry approach used on 5-day wells. As nearly all wells are now slimhole monobores, the cement job has become one of the most important operations in the life of the well. The absence of packers or other isolation devices means that the cement job functions as a primary pressure barrier and is the only technique to isolate the numerous sands in each well. This combined with the logistic issues of fast offshore batch drilling exact a premium on cementing products and the entire cementing process itself.
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