In support of the Methane Emissions Reduction Program (MERP) and under the National Methane Emissions Reduction Initiative (NEMRI), the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and NETL site support contractors are developing and releasing an open-source decision-support tool (“PRIMO”) to help organizations determine which marginal conventional wells (MCWs) or other low-producing wells make the best candidates for plugging utilizing MERP funds, while also optimizing subsequent plugging and abandonment (P&A) campaigns for both program impact and efficiency. The framework—which is fully customizable—provides three main capabilities:
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Ranking candidate wells (based on user preferences)
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Identifying high-impact, high-efficiency P&A project candidates (with transparently computed scores for relevant metrics)
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Comparing competing P&A projects quantitatively (through transparently computed project impact and efficiency scores)
As such, PRIMO is a versatile, fully customizable tool that is meant to support organizations in making data-based, transparent, and defensible well selection and P&A project design decisions. For questions, comments or feedback, please contact primo@netl.doe.gov.
