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DOE OSTI · 3031242

PRIMO – The Oil & Gas Well Plugging Optimizer

Strahl, William [NETL Site Support Contractor, National Energy Technology Laboratory]·Kakkad, Dev [NETL Site Support Contractor, National Energy Technology Laboratory] (ORCID:0009000461029373)·Li, Ruonan [NETL Site Support Contractor, National Energy Technology Laboratory]·Tumbalam Gooty, Radhakrishna [NETL Site Support Contractor, National Energy Technology Laboratory] (ORCID:0000000320879131)·Lee, Sangbum [NETL] (ORCID:0009000681695415)·Puranik, Yash [NETL Site Support Contractor, National Energy Technology Laboratory]·Zamarripa-Perez, Miguel [NETL Site Support Contractor, National Energy Technology Laboratory] (ORCID:0000000182162203)·Drouven, Markus [NETL] (ORCID:0000000213125617)
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Abstract

This work presents PRIMO’s main capabilities and introduces the PRIMO web application, an intuitive user interface that leverages our sophisticated mathematical optimization model to rigorously optimize P&A priorities and plugging campaign efficiency. The web app simplifies user interaction, provides a powerful data management framework, and supports a broad user base (e.g., state agencies, well owners/operators, and plugging companies) to use PRIMO for decision-making. Specifically, we provide a demonstration of how to input the information on candidate wells, plugging campaign budget, user-defined priority and efficiency criteria to PRIMO. A real-world case study that consists of 1411 oil and gas wells and impact and efficiency priorities (e.g., well age, well proximity to schools/hospitals, well accessibility, distance between wells in projects) is presented to showcase PRIMO’s core capabilities: (i) ranking a candidate well population based on priorities, (ii) recommending high-impact and high-efficiency P&A projects, and (iii) assigning impact and efficiency scores to projects allowing for rigorous quantitative comparison among them.

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02 PETROLEUM03 NATURAL GAS58 GEOSCIENCESefficiencymachine learningoil & gas well pluggingoptimizationwell prioritization

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Strahl, William [NETL Site Support Contractor, National Energy Technology Laboratory], Kakkad, Dev [NETL Site Support Contractor, National Energy Technology Laboratory] (ORCID:0009000461029373), Li, Ruonan [NETL Site Support Contractor, National Energy Technology Laboratory], Tumbalam Gooty, Radhakrishna [NETL Site Support Contractor, National Energy Technology Laboratory] (ORCID:0000000320879131), Lee, Sangbum [NETL] (ORCID:0009000681695415), Puranik, Yash [NETL Site Support Contractor, National Energy Technology Laboratory], Zamarripa-Perez, Miguel [NETL Site Support Contractor, National Energy Technology Laboratory] (ORCID:0000000182162203), Drouven, Markus [NETL] (ORCID:0000000213125617). 2026-03-24. PRIMO – The Oil & Gas Well Plugging Optimizer. https://doi.org/10.2172/3031242

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