HAR §13-183-71. Casing and cementing requirements

(a) All wells shall be cased in a manner to protect and prevent or to minimize damage to the environment, ground water resources, geothermal resources, life, health, and property. The permanent well head completion equipment and all casing strings reaching the surface shall provide for adequate well pressure control, operational safety, and protection of all natural resources. Department specifications for casing strings shall be determined on a well-to-well basis. All casing strings reaching the surface shall provide adequate anchorage for blowout-prevention equipment, hole pressure control and protection for all natural resources. The casing requirements described below are general and should be used as guidelines in submitting proposed casing programs required to be filed with applications for permit. (b) Conductor pipe shall be installed to a depth of a minimum of fifty feet and a maximum of one hundred fifty feet. In special cases the chairperson may allow conductor pipe to be run and cemented at deeper depths. The annular space between the hole and pipe shall be cemented solid to the surface. (c) Surface casing shall be installed to provide for control of formation fluids, for protection of ground water resources, and for anchorage of blowout-prevention equipment. All surface casing shall be cemented solid to the surface. (d) Surface casing shall be set to a minimum depth of ten percent of the proposed total depth of the well or five hundred feet, whichever is greater. If usable basal ground water is present or reasonably suspected to exist in the area, the depth of the surface casing shall be approved by the chairperson. If subsurface geological, hydrological, or geothermal conditions are to be or within the vicinity of the area to be drilled, then these conditions shall be used in determining and approving the depth of surface casing. A second string of surface casing may be required if the first string has not been cemented through a 39 sufficient series of low permeability, competent rock formations or a rapidly increasing thermal gradient or rapidly increasing formation pressures are encountered. (e) Intermediate casing shall be required for protection against anomalous pressure zones, cave-ins, washouts, abnormal temperature zones, uncontrollable lost circulation zones or other drilling hazards. Intermediate casing strings shall be cemented solid to the surface. (f) Production casing may be set above or through the producing or injection zone and cemented above the zones. Sufficient cement shall be used to exclude overlying formation fluids from the zone, to segregate zones and to prevent movement of fluids behind the casing into zones that contain ground water. Production casing shall either be cemented solid to the surface or lapped into intermediate casing, if installed. If the production casing is lapped into an intermediate string, the casing overlap shall be at least fifty feet, the lap shall be cemented solid and the lap shall be pressure tested to ensure the integrity of the lap. In order to reduce casing corrosion, production casing used to produce corrosive brine reservoirs shall be of the same nominal inside diameter from the shoe of the casing to the ground surface unless waived by the chairperson. (g) All cement used in cementing the various types of casing required herein shall contain a high temperature resistant admix, unless this cement requirement is waived by the chairperson due to the particular circumstances existing in the well or the area. [Eff. JUN 22 1981] (Auth: HRS §182-14) (Imp: HRS §182-14)