PETROLEUM EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Volume 46, Issue 3, June 2019

Online English edition of the Chinese language journal

Cite this article as: PETROL. EXPLOR. DEVELOP., 2019, 46(3): 614–620. RESEARCH PAPER

Optimization of well pad design and drilling - well clustering

ABRAMOV Aleksandr*
School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, Australia

Abstract: A model accounting for more than 30 parameters of drilling projects, and a computer program to enumerate groupings of the
wells of a pad with consequent calculations of technical-economic characteristics, are developed and tested. Seven drilling scenarios for a
24-well pad with different starting oil flow rates for the wells are studied. Optimal well groupings in terms of Net Present Value (NPV) for
three discount rates and five oil production decline rates have been found. The results show that: NPV-maximizing well pad designs with
unequal (varying) numbers of wells in groups (clusters) may require only slight alterations of existing designs (changing the configura-
tions of a couple of well clusters); relative NPV gain is inversely proportional to the absolute value of NPV; observed increases in NPV in
groupings with varying numbers of wells reach up to 1% with respect to groupings with equal (constant) numbers of wells in groups for
conventional projects, and could reach 2% and more for shale formation development projects, and up to 45% for marginal projects.

Key words: pad drilling; multi-well pad; well groupings; batch drilling; clusters of wells

Introduction pendent[11]; the interference was more intense if the time in-
terval between successive fracturing in a single wellbore was
Well pads play an important role in the oil industry, making
short. It is demonstrated that the time interval between adja-
the development of oil and gas fields with complicated sur-
cent fractures has a significant effect on the production per-
face conditions feasible[1–4]. When designing a multi-well pad
formance and geometry of fractures in a horizontal wellbore.
for oil and gas development, the following issues should be
Gakhar et al. took a well pad as a single system and its de-
addressed: (i) the overall number of wells and well pads; (ii)
velopment strategy was optimized by changing the vertical
which wells belong to which pads; (iii) well spacing and well
conductivity and reservoir conditions while considering ar-
interference; (iv) simultaneous operations and collision con-
rangement of two kinds of wells[8]. Schofield et al. investi-
trol; (v) well pad layout and the grouping (clustering) of wells
gated pad completion techniques to minimize the time to first
on the pad; (vi) issues related to the daily operation of well
oil and simulation of low permeability reservoirs[9,12–13]. Tol-
pads.
man et al. introduced an industrial experience of drilling mul-
Well spacing and well interference are important research
tiple wells from a single pad, technology to stimulate multiple
topics. Tightening well spacing while doing large hydraulic
pay zones in each well, and technology for the simultaneous
fracturing jobs on the wells of a pad is an effective way to stimulation of multiple wells on the same well pad while
improve the profitability of shale formation development. But drilling additional wells[14]. These technologies can save time,
this increases the risk of fracture hits. To predict and prevent enhance production rate and reduce environmental impact.
fracture hits in a multi-well pad, Molina et al. developed and Ogoke et al. studied proper management of simultaneous
tested a mathematical model to estimate the degree of well (done within a cluster of wells) and concurrent (done within
interference[5]. Wilson et al. researched well spacing optimiza- different clusters of wells) operations, tested simultaneous
tion and the minimization of well interference[6–9]. Awada et al. drilling-drilling, completion-completion and drilling-comple-
came up with a procedure to identify and quantify interference tion. These operations have proved to be efficient in acceler-
from the pressure response observed at a shut-in well while ating construction of multi-well pads consisting of 26 wells in
changing production rate at neighboring wells within a multi- clusters of six to eight. Awad et al. presented a regional appli-
well pad[10], which is applicable to multi-well pad completion cation of simultaneous operations on a 6-well pad[15]. Stagg
in unconventional plays. Studying a four-well pad, Man- and Reiley introduced a wellhead monitoring system to pre-
chanda et al. found that fracture interference was time de- vent sub-surface well collisions, which was used to ensure

Received date: 07 Jun. 2018; Revised date: 25 Jan. 2019.

* Corresponding author. E-mail: aabramov@our.ecu.edu.au
https://doi.org/10.1016/S1876-3804(19)60041-8
Copyright © 2019, Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration & Development, PetroChina. Publishing Services provided by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Com-
munications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 ABRAMOV Aleksandr / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2019, 46(3): 614–620

safe drilling in proximity to the already producing wells of a consists of four clusters each containing one well. Real well
pad[4]. Demong et al. looked into the evolution of pad design pads are larger and include around 20 or more wells[2–3]. The
over a period of field development to meet the needs during overall number of possible groupings of such pads is given by
construction, drilling and completion[2], and they transformed 2N–1, with N being the total number of wells (Fig. 1). Previous
an initial 6-well pad design to a 20-well pad with careful con- studies have been limited to groupings with constant number
sideration of all practical aspects. Krome et al. presented im- of wells in clusters, overwhelming unequal grouping possi-
plementation of an intelligent well pad program, which in- bilities have been ignored. Obviously, for larger well pads,
creased the level of automation and introduced remote sur- this subset of the configurations is also large and often is not
veillance[16]. considered in its entirety. As every configuration has a layout,
When dealing with well pad configurations and the cluster- production profile and drilling sequence specific to it, skip-
ing of wells on the surface, oil and gas field operators follow ping some configurations may result in overlooking the opti-
national standards and regulations[17]. Such regulations set mum for the particular conditions of a drilling project.
limits on the distances between wells and groups of wells, and There are three stages of a generalized well pad drilling
limit the overall number of wells in pads. But sufficient free- project which may overlap in time: (i) landfill construction, (ii)
dom is left for an engineer to decide on the numbers of wells drilling and completion of wells and (iii) production period.
in groups and how many groups are there in a particular pad. As some wells start producing before the drilling of a pad is
Although many aspects of well pad design have been ex- finished, the second and the third stages normally overlap in
tensively studied, there is no report of design optimization time.
attempts utilizing unequal numbers of wells in groups. Well Landfill construction is modeled as an independent project
pad designs with constant number of wells in groups are implemented before the drilling of the first well. All the costs
common, but the groupings with varying numbers of wells associated with this construction are expressed in terms of
have better economy than that with constant number of money of the first day of drilling. There is a fixed cost of con-
wells[18]. We further improve our technical-economic model to struction, which is assumed to be covered on the day of con-
include more than 30 operational parameters. By combining struction start. There are everyday costs for keeping a constant
these parameters differently, millions of possible clustering construction speed. A provision is also made for some time
options for a well pad can be worked out. A model for well after the completion of construction and the beginning of
pad drilling projects has also been developed and optimized. drilling, time that might be necessary for the mobilization of
By using the model, some practical drilling scenarios (case the drilling rig. The landfill design is different for every
studies) have been simulated to confirm the economic efficacy grouping of wells as the distance between the wells and dis-
of groupings with varying numbers of wells. The simulation tance between the groups of wells defines the length of the
results demonstrated that the proper clustering of wells could landfill (Fig. 2).
be economically beneficial and could play a key role in
“go/no go” investment decisions.

1. Background
On a pad, wells are often grouped together in clusters (these
clusters or groups may contain only one well). After the drill-
ing of wells in a cluster is finished, the drilling rig is moved to
the next cluster. For safety reasons, the distance between the
clusters is larger than the distance between wells within the
clusters. Hence a larger number of clusters will result in in-
crease of well pad area and consequently pad cost. But having
fewer wells within each cluster means earlier and fast-paced Fig. 1. Number of well clustering options as a function of num-
ber of wells in a pad.
production. The economic results by changing these two
competing factors need to be examined in depth, especially
for groupings with unequal numbers of wells.
The complexity of the problem of grouping wells and
searching for an optimal configuration is best illustrated by an
example. Let us consider a 4-well pad. The possible groupings
of such a pad would be {4}, {3,1}, {1,3}, {2,2}, {2,1,1},
{1,2,1}, {1,1,2}, and {1,1,1,1} (configurations are shown in
curly brackets with the number of wells in each group being
separated by commas). Here the first configuration consists of
one cluster containing four wells and the last configuration Fig. 2. Some possible layouts of a 12-well pad.

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After the landfill is prepared and the rig is ready (mobi- characterized by the parameters given in Table 1. Fig. 4 shows
lized), drilling of the first well starts. The remaining wells are the time and total investments of an example design 2x12,
drilled in sequence. When the drilling of a well is done, the including necessary rig shifts and mobilization/demobilization.
drilling rig is shifted to the next position. This shift could be The liquid and oil production, as well as NPV, of this example
short (from a well of one group to the next well of the same project are shown in Fig. 5. The initial flow rates of oil for all
group) or long (from the last well of one group to the first 24 wells linearly change from 90 t/d for the first well to 20 t/d
well of the next group). When all the wells of a group have for the last well. The discount rate was set at 20%/year and the
been drilled, completion of the first well of this group begins oil production decline rate 25%/year.
and the rig is shifted to the next group. Completion and tie-in To analyze possible well clustering options in the manner
operations are then done sequentially for the remaining wells demonstrated in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, a Python program to enu-
of the group. After the last well of the pad has been drilled, merate groupings of all the wells of a 24-well pad (the number
the rig is demobilized and the wells of the last group are com- of wells may be arbitrary) was developed, and for the set of
pleted. parameters given in Table 1, the NPV of each grouping was
Once the wells are drilled and completed, they are put into calculated. The enumeration of the clustering options can be
production. The production characteristics of each well can be formalized in the following way. There are N variables repre-
defined by a set of parameters, including the initial oil flow senting the number of wells in each group: n i , i =
rate, production decline rate, initial water cut, production time,
and costs of drilling and completion. In our model, we could Table 1. Technical and economic parameters of the model.
shut-in any well on the basis of the current water cut or we Classifi-
Technical and economic parameter Value
could convert a producer into an injector after some time. In cation
this work, we use a threshold water cut of 90 % to decide if a Distance between wells 5m
well should be shut in. We also assume that liquid production Distance between groups of wells 15 m
construction parameters

slightly grows year by year. Distance from the first and the last
Landfill design and

80 m
Possible oil production profiles of the pads with the layouts wells of a pad to the landfill border
shown in Fig. 2 are exemplified in Fig. 3. From these figures, Landfill width 75 m
it can be seen that longer and more expensive pads start to Landfill height 2m
produce earlier and have higher cumulative oil production. Landfill construction speed 600 m3/d
The economy and cost of a drilling project also depends on Drilling rig mobilization time 30 d
Landfill specific cost 167 USD/m3
the price of oil and operational expenditures per cubic meter
Fixed cost of pad construction 1.7106 USD
of produced liquid. Termination of each project could be for
*Well drilling time 30 d
one of two reasons: the water cut of all wells is above given
*Well completion time 20 d
threshold or the modeling period exceeds 20 years.
completion parameters

*Well drilling cost 0.83106 USD

2. Simulation of drilling projects and computational *Well completion cost 0.5106 USD
Drilling and

details Drilling rig short shift duration 1d

Drilling rig long shift duration 2d
To simulate the drilling of well pads we constructed a
Drilling rig demobilization time 10 d
model based on the premises given in the Background section. Drilling rig short shift cost 28333 USD
A typical drilling project of a 24-well pad (2×12 twelve Drilling rig long shift cost 43333 USD
groups of two wells) was simulated using this model and Drilling rig demobilization cost 166667 USD
*Initial oil flow rate 20, 50, 90 t/d
25%, 40%, 45%,
parameters of wells

*Oil production decline rate

Technological

50%, 60%, 70%

*Initial water cut 1%
*Liquid production increment 0.3%
* Water cut at well shut-in 90%
*Oil density 850 kg/m3
*Water density 1010 kg/m3
Price of oil 200 USD/t
Specific operational expenditures
parameters

16.7 USD/m3
Economic

(liquid based)
Discount rate 10%, 15%, 20%
Time step 1d
Fig. 3. Oil production and cumulative oil production of three
pad layouts (26—two wells in six groups; 34—three wells in Modeling period 20 a
four groups; 43—four wells in three groups). Note: * Parameters set for every well individually

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Fig. 4. Jobs and investment schedule for the example drilling project 2x12 (dashed horizontal lines - well drilling and completion).

numbers of wells, realistic situations where the wells of a pad

start producing at different rates were used. The economic
parameters of seven scenarios with the initial flow rate of
wells of 20, 50 or 90 t/day were evaluated. Fig. 6 shows these
scenarios in the form of radial diagrams. In the S1 scenario,
all the odd wells have initial oil flow rates of 90 t/d and all the
even wells have starting oil flow rates of 20 t/d. In the S2
scenario, the first three wells have an initial oil flow rate of
90 t/d, the next three wells have initial oil flow rate of 20 t/d
and so on. All the remaining scenarios may be interpreted in
an analogous fashion.
Fig. 5. Liquid and oil production, NPV of the example drilling For every scenario, through a primary selection, the group-
project. ing option with a constant number of wells in the groups that
1, 2, ..., N. The sum of all the variables exactly equals N. In can reach the highest NPV was picked as the reference design.
every set of variables, zero values are ignored. All the sets of These groupings are labeled as “number of wells by number
N variables constructed in this way are essentially eligible of groups”. The second optimization used a variable number
well grouping options. Practical implementations of the for- of wells in each group. The number of wells in each group
malism may be different from its straightforward interpreta- was labeled in curly brackets (Table 2). To find the absolutely
tion, but its description in this way expresses the gist of the optimal groupings in terms of NPV, all 8 388 608 possibilities
enumeration scheme in the simplest form (as an example of were tested. Optimal groupings of wells for each scenario and
practical realization, we found a scheme where a fixed num- for three discount rates are listed in Table 2. Here the oil pro-
ber of wells is recursively distributed among groups to be
duction decline rate was set at 25%/year.
efficient and concise in terms of required coding). Every clus-
It is interesting to note that sometimes very small changes
tering option defines the scale of landfill, timing of construc-
tion, drilling sequence and production profile. Because of the
large number of clustering possibilities and thus required sig-
nificant computational effort, crucial parts of our code were
written in Cython (Cython is a superset of the Python). The
program has a regularly formatted input file for scientific
computing, which can be generated by a top level utility or
some GUI wrapper (Graphical User Interface wrappers run
atop command line programs to simplify user interactions
with software).
3. Results of computations for drilling project
scenarios and discussion
Fig. 6. Initial oil flow rate (t/d) of every well of the pad for seven
To demonstrate the benefits of groupings with unequal scenarios.
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Table 2. Optimal groupings for three discount rates and seven scenarios.
Optimal groupings
Sce- Discount rate 10%/a Discount rate 15%/a Discount rate 20%/a
nario Groupings with equal Groupings with un- Groupings with equal Groupings with unequal Groupings with equal Groupings with unequal
numbers of wells equal numbers of wells numbers of wells numbers of wells numbers of wells numbers of wells
S1 3×8 {3,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,3} 3×8 {1,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,3} 2×2 {1,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,3}
S2 3×8 {2,2,3,2,4,2,4,2,3} 2×12 {2,2,3,2,3,2,2,3,2,3} 2×12 {2,2,3,2,3,2,2,3,2,3}
S3 3×8 {4,2,4,2,4,2,4,2} 3×8 {4,2,4,2,4,2,4,2} 3×8 {4,2,4,2,4,2,4,2}
S4 3×8 {2,2,2,2,2,2,4,4,4} 2×12 {2,2,2,2,2,2,4,4,4} 2×12 {2,2,2,2,2,2,4,4,4}
S5 3×8 {4,4,4,2,2,2,2,2,2} 2×12 {4,4,4,2,2,2,2,2,2} 2×12 {4,4,4,2,2,2,2,2,2}
S6 3×8 {4,4,2,2,2,2,4,4} 3×8 {4,4,2,2,2,2,4,4} 3×8 {4,4,2,2,2,2,4,4}
S7 3×8 {4,4,2,3,3,2,2,2,2} 3×8 {4,4,2,3,3,2,2,2,2} 2×12 {4,4,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2}
Note: Optimal groupings with equal numbers of wells are given as “number of wells”  “number of groups”. Optimal configurations with unequal
numbers of wells are given in curly brackets, here the numbers of wells in every group are separated by commas.

to well pad design can maximize NPV. For the S1 scenario, To specifically illustrate the advantages of groupings with
only the first and the last groups require alteration for each unequal numbers of wells for the development of shale forma-
discount rate to maximize NPV. Only two groups require tions, the discount rate was set at 15%/year and the oil pro-
modifications in S7 scenario at a discount rate of 20%/year. duction decline rates were set at 40%, 45% and 50 % per year,
For each scenario, the NPVs of groupings with constant which were about two times the value previously used in this
numbers of wells in clusters for discount rates of 10%, 15% study. Optimal clustering options with equal and unequal
and 20%/year are shown in Fig. 7. The NPV could be in- numbers of wells for all seven scenarios and at the oil produc-
creased by using groupings with variable numbers of wells, it tion decline rates were found (Table 3). From Fig. 8, the
can be seen from the figure, the larger the discount rate the closer the NPV to zero, the stronger the positive effect of
stronger the effect of proper groupings on NPV increment. In groupings with unequal numbers of wells is. The general trend
the best case situation, S6 scenario with a discount rate of is that NPV increment gets higher with the increase of the oil
20%/year, the NPV increase may reach almost 1%. It should production decline rate for all scenarios. There are only a
be noted here that these are secondary optimizations, optimi-
zations with respect to previously found optimal groupings
with constant numbers of wells in the clusters. It thus maybe
safe to say that the demonstrated increases only set a lower
limit to possible in practice.
Another intriguing feature of optimal groupings with vari-
able numbers of wells is that larger NPV increases could be
expected for projects with low absolute values of NPV. This is
apparent for scenarios S3 and S6 (Fig. 7). This aspect could be
decisive for marginal and near negative profit projects, in-
cluding the development of shale and low permeability reser-
voirs. Contrariwise, for scenarios S2, S4 and S7, which have
the largest absolute value of NPV, the NPV increments are the
Fig. 7. NPV of optimal groupings with constant numbers of
smallest. This feature clearly reveals itself for higher discount wells in clusters and NPV increase of groupings with variable
rates. numbers of wells in clusters at three discount rates.

Table 3. Optimal groupings for three oil production decline rates and seven scenarios.
Optimal groupings
Sce- Oil production decline rate 40%/a Oil production decline rate 45%/a Oil production decline rate 50%/a
nario Groupings with equal Groupings with un- Groupings with equal Groupings with un- Groupings with equal Groupings with un-
numbers of wells equal numbers of wells numbers of wells equal numbers of wells numbers of wells equal numbers of wells
S1 3×8 {3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3} 3×8 {3,3,3,4,4,4,3} 3×8 {3,3,3,4,4,4,3}
S2 3×8 {3,4,2,4,2,4,2,3} 3×8 {3,4,2,4,2,4,2,3} 3×8 {3,4,2,4,2,5,4}
S3 3×8 {4,2,4,2,4,2,4,2} 3×8 {4,2,4,2,4,2,4,2} 4×6 {4,2,4,2,5,4,3}
S4 3×8 {2,2,2,2,2,2,6,6} 3×8 {2,2,2,2,2,2,6,6} 3×8 {3,3,3,3,6,6}
S5 3×8 {6,6,2,2,2,2,2,2} 3×8 {6,6,2,2,3,3,2} 4×6 {6,6,3,3,3,3}
S6 3×8 {4,4,2,2,2,2,8} 4×6 {7,3,2,2,2,8} 4×6 {7,3,3,3,8}
S7 3×8 {6,4,3,3,2,2,2,2} 3×8 {6,4,4,3,2,3,2} 4×6 {7,4,4,3,3,3}

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bined with an evaluation of the economic characteristics is an

efficient method to locate the global maximum of economic
performance for a well pad drilling project. The demonstrated
approach paves a way to the routine study and optimization of
configurations and designs of well pads with virtually any
number of wells seen in practice. These optimizations take
into account all known characteristics of drilling projects and
technological parameters of individual wells. At the moment
the number of such characteristics exceeds 30 and more than
10 of them are specified individually for every well.
In this work we studied seven drilling scenarios for a
24-well pad with different starting oil flow rates for the wells.
Fig. 8. NPV increment of optimal groupings with constant
numbers of wells in clusters and of optimal groupings with vari-
Optimal well groupings in terms of NPV for three discount
able numbers of wells in clusters for three oil production decline rates and five oil production decline rates have been found.
rates. The results demonstrate that: (i) NPV maximizing well pad
couple of deviations from this behavior. For the S1 scenario designs with varying numbers of wells may require only the
and a 40%/year oil production decline rate, the optimal slight alteration of existing designs (changing the configura-
grouping with an unequal number of wells has the same NPV tions of a couple of well clusters); (ii) Relative NPV increase
as the optimal grouping with equal number of wells. For S3 is inversely proportional to the absolute value of NPV; (iii)
scenario, the efficiency of the optimal clustering with an un- The observed increases in NPV for groupings with varying
equal number of wells for an oil production decline rate of numbers of wells reach up to 1% for conventional projects
50%/year is slightly less than that for 45%/year. These few and could reach 2% and more for shale formation development
exceptions from the general trend merely show that in par- projects, and up to 45% for marginal projects. In addition to
ticular conditions groupings with a constant number of wells these findings it must be mentioned that the development of a
in clusters could be close in economic efficiency to groupings
with a variable number of wells. Yet, the former groupings are
inferior to the latter ones. It can be seen from Fig. 8 the
groupings with variable number of wells in clusters have the
highest NPV increment of around 2%.
Performance of well pad configurations with unequal
number of wells in extreme cases of very low, near-negative
or negative NPV is depicted in Fig. 9, and the optimal well
groupings are listed in Table 4. The scenario S7 has the highest
NPV increment of 45% at the oil production decline rate of
70%/year. In some cases, like scenario S1 and S4 in Table 4,
optimal groupings getting the highest NPV increment are the
same for different oil production decline rates. This feature can
make it easier to design well pad when conditions are uncertain.
Fig. 9. NPV increment of optimal groupings with constant
4. Conclusions numbers of wells in clusters and NPV increment of groupings
with variable numbers of wells in clusters for two very high oil
A rigorous enumeration of well grouping possibilities com- production decline rates.

Table 4. Optimal groupings for two very high oil production decline rates and seven scenarios.
Optimal groupings
Oil production decline rate 60%/a Oil production decline rate 70%/a
Scenario
Groupings with equal Groupings with unequal Groupings with equal Groupings with unequal
numbers of wells numbers of wells numbers of wells numbers of wells
S1 46 {3,4,4,4,4,5} 46 {3,4,4,4,4,5}
S2 46 {3,5,4,3,5,4} 46 {3,6,6,5,4}
S3 64 {6,6,6,6} 64 {6,6,6,6}
S4 46 {3,3,3,3,12} 46 {3,3,3,3,12}
S5 46 {12,3,3,3,3} 46 {12,4,4,4}
S6 46 {8,2,3,3,8} 64 {8,4,4,8}
S7 46 {7,4,4,3,3,3} 64 {9,5,4,3,3}

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