Compliance-As-Code for Well Integrity: Automated ISO Lifecycle Mapping and Regulator-Ready Reporting

Abstract

Compliance reporting for well integrity remains narration-heavy, labour-intensive, and inconsistent across assets. This study develops a compliance-as-code approach that encodes integrity obligations (hazard identification, risk assessment, barrier verification, documentation) into 187 machine-checkable rules mapped to ISO 16530-1 lifecycle phases. Integrated into a Well Integrity Management System (WIMS), the rules automatically evaluate evidence completeness and generate regulator-ready compliance packs with exception lists and corrective workflows. A pilot on 42 wells (22 active, 20 late-life) demonstrated transformative outcomes: audit preparation time halved (50.4% reduction), total compliance findings decreased by 40.1% (with 66.7% improvement in barrier-mapping consistency and 58.3% reduction in missing documentation), and traceability (the ability to link each compliance assertion to verifiable evidence) improved from 44% to 92%. The system proved robust under degraded data quality, producing zero false positive compliance assertions. Late-life wells and low-maturity WIMS environments showed the largest absolute gains. This practical digital compliance layer reduces operational costs, non-compliance risk, and long-term liability while improving data-handover readiness for farm-ins and divestments, establishing a new benchmark for lifecycle well integrity management.