CEMENTING MAY BE a small portion of the overall well construction cost, but its impact on the success or failure of a well is anything but, said Dan Mueller, cementing specialist for ConocoPhillips. Especially in deepwater, where time equals big money, having to perform a squeeze operation to repair a poor cement job can easily push a project into serious and costly trouble. "You hear these numbers thrown around and they almost seem unreal, but if you don't get a competent cement sheath around the shoe of a surface casing in deepwater, it will cost at least 1 million dollars," he said, "and that's a conservative number."
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