I’m sure there is data around for how much pad drilling improves operations, but I’ve not seen a specific report like this.
The concept is that drilling multiple wells from one pad makes everything easier. The drillers don’t have to disassemble all the drilling equipment and can instead just side-step the rig. I discussed that in my post here. You can see a video of a rig side-stepping here.
Million Dollar Way has multiple posts over recent months talking about 6, 8, or 12 wells on one pad.
Eagle Ford Shale provides some hard numbers from one specific company: Pioneer Natural Resource Expanding Use of Pad Drilling in 2013. Check this out:
Pioneer Natural Resources’ (PXD) Eagle Ford drilling will come from centralized pads 80% of the time in 2013. That’s up from 45% of the time in 2012 and will allow the company to drill 130 wells with just 10 rigs. Pioneer saves $600,000-700,000 per well when utilizing pads. Approximately 130 wells were drilled in 2012 with an average of 12 rigs running.
That’s almost doubling the amount of pad drilling.
Notice the cost savings? Around $700K per well.
Check out the efficiency. By my calculation, that’s 28.1 days per well in ‘13, down from 33.7 in ‘12. That is a 16.6% reduction in days.
Isn’t human ingenuity cool?