Context
Well-pad locations had historically been set mainly by the well pattern. That worked for simple structures, but with horizontal drilling and more complex topography it was pushing unit technical cost up and development efficiency down.
Role
Senior Concept Engineer: led a cross-discipline group across geology, drilling, infrastructure, economics and legal, and designed the evaluation framework.
Challenge
Hit drilling and geology targets at minimum lifecycle cost, within environmental and land-allocation limits, while balancing technical achievability against economics under high input-data uncertainty.
Action
- Set up a group across geology, drilling, infrastructure, economics and legal.
- Built an evaluation framework with more than 20 parameters: horizontal section length, entry angle, logistics, crossings, land-allocation limits, CAPEX and OPEX.
- Generated 9 to 30 alternative pad locations per case, ranked them and shortlisted the top 3 to 5 with GIS models, cost models and scenario analysis.
- Produced a recommended and an alternative option with quantified savings per driver and aligned them at the DRB.
Result
10–50% lifecycle cost reduction depending on the case; corridor length down 15–35% and earthworks down 10–30%. The method gave faster alignment between technical and economic teams and more predictable budgets.
