§ 250.619 — Tubing And Wellhead Equipment

The lessee shall comply with the following requirements during well-workover operations with the tree removed:

(a) No tubing string may be placed in service or continue to be used unless such tubing string has the necessary strength and pressure integrity and is otherwise suitable for its intended use.

(1) The tubing string must be evaluated for burst, collapse, and axial loads with appropriate safety factors and material design factors for the pressure and temperature environments of the completion, production, shut-in, and injection load cases.

(2) The tubing string materials must be appropriate for the environment. You must follow NACE Standard MR0175-2003 (incorporated by reference in § 250.198) when H2S concentration may equal or exceed 0.05 psi partial pressure.

(3) The tubing string threaded connectors must be appropriate for the loading identified in paragraph (a)(1) of this section.

(b) When reinstalling the tree, you must:

(1) Equip wells to monitor for casing pressure according to the following chart:

(2) Follow the casing pressure management requirements in subpart E of this part.

(c) You must design and test the wellhead, tree, and related equipment in accordance with ANSI/API Spec. 6A (incorporated by reference in § 250.198) or ANSI/API Spec. 17D (incorporated by reference in § 250.198), as applicable. The wellhead, tree, and related equipment must have a pressure rating greater than the shut-in tubing pressure and must be designed, installed, operated, maintained, and tested so as to achieve and maintain pressure containment and pressure control.

(1) Dry trees (e.g., fixed, hybrid, or mudline suspension) for production or injection wells must be equipped with a minimum of one master valve and one surface safety valve (SSV), installed above the master valve, in the vertical run of the tree.

(2) Subsea production or injection wells must be equipped with a minimum of one USV installed in the horizontal or vertical run of the tree (for vertical or horizontal subsea trees).

(3) Wells with a mudline suspension conversion to a subsea tree must have a minimum of two casing strings tied back and sealed below the tubing head. At minimum, the production casing and the next outer casing must be tied back to the wellhead, to ensure annular isolation.

(d) You must install, maintain, and test surface and subsurface safety equipment in accordance with the applicable requirements in subpart H of this part.

(e) If you pull and reinstall packers and bridge plugs, you must meet the following requirements:

(1) The uppermost permanently installed packer and all permanently installed bridge plugs qualified as mechanical barriers must comply with ANSI/API Spec. 11D1 (as incorporated by reference in § 250.198).

(2) The production packer must be set at a depth that will allow for a column of weighted fluids to be placed above the packer that will exert a hydrostatic force greater than or equal to the force created by the reservoir pressure below the packer;

(3) The production packer must be set as close as practically possible to the perforated interval; and

(4) The production packer must be set at a depth that is within the cemented interval of the selected casing section.

(f) Your APM must include a description and calculations for how you determined the production packer setting depth.

(g) You must have two independent barriers, one being mechanical, in the exposed center wellbore prior to removing the tree and/or well control equipment.