Placing of wells in clusters with unequal number of thereof is an emerging concept of well pad development which still requires scrutiny even from a theoretical standpoint. The concept has its potential in improving economic efficiency of one of the most capital intensive processes in upstream sector of petroleum industry—the well pad drilling. To advocate and strengthen this profitability enhancing potential, this work integrates clustering of unequal number of wells into modern project management methodologies (agile project management), which has not been done before. It is shown that such symbiosis, which is called here the adaptive well pad development (or agile methodology of well pad development), has twofold benefit consisting of (1) managing of and accounting for uncertainties of real projects and (2) further improving economic performance of development projects in comparison with standalone well pad configurations with unequal number of wells. To exemplify these advantages, detailed simulations of well pad drilling projects were performed with equal and unequal number of wells in clusters. The simulation model accounting for more than 40 parameters and individual features of wells shows that combination of unequal well clustering configurations with adaptation of well pad designs to updates in project parameters results in significant improvements to the net present value (NPV). For three drilling scenarios studied in this work, the NPV increments ranged from 8 to 36%. Additionally, it was found that groupings with unequal number of wells consistently outperform groupings with equal number of wells in uncertain conditions, and NPV improvements from 10 to 20% have been obtained. These findings enrich understanding of the vast space of clustering schemes with unequal number of wells and demonstrate how these well pad configurations can be applied to use ever-changing environment to one's advantage. On basis of this computational study, it is now valid to assert with high degree of certainty and confidence that industrial deployment of clustering with unequal number of wells in combination with proper organizational measures results in boost to the NPV of well pad development projects at the level of several to tens of percent.

中文翻译：

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井板开发的敏捷方法

在数量不等的簇中放置井是井垫开发的新兴概念，即使从理论的角度来看，仍然需要仔细检查。该概念在提高石油工业上游部门资本密集度最高的流程之一-井眼钻井-的经济效率方面具有潜力。为了提倡并增强这种提高利润的潜力，这项工作将不等井数的聚类集成到了现代项目管理方法（敏捷项目管理）中，而这是以前没有做过的。结果表明，这种共生关系在这里被称为自适应井垫开发（或井垫开发的敏捷方法），具有双重好处，包括（1）管理和考虑实际项目的不确定性；（2）与井数不等的独立井垫配置相比，进一步改善了开发项目的经济绩效。为了体现这些优势，对簇中相同数量和不同数量的井进行了井垫钻井项目的详细模拟。包含40多个参数和井的各个特征的仿真模型表明，不等的井聚类配置与井垫设计适应项目参数更新的结合，可显着提高净现值（NPV）。对于这项工作中研究的三种钻井方案，NPV增量范围为8％至36％。另外，结果发现，在不确定条件下，井数不等的组始终优于井数相同的组，并且NPV改善了10％至20％。这些发现丰富了对不等井数的聚类方案的广阔空间的理解，并证明了如何利用这些井垫配置来利用不断变化的环境来发挥自己的优势。在此计算研究的基础上，现在可以高度肯定和有把握地断言，采用不等井数的集群进行工业部署与适当的组织措施相结合，可以提高该水平井垫开发项目的净现值百分之几到百分之几十。净现值从10％提高到20％。这些发现丰富了对不等井数的聚类方案的广阔空间的理解，并证明了如何利用这些井垫配置来利用不断变化的环境来发挥自己的优势。在此计算研究的基础上，现在可以高度肯定和有把握地断言，采用不等井数的集群进行工业部署与适当的组织措施相结合，可以提高该水平井垫开发项目的净现值百分之几到百分之几十。净现值从10％提高到20％。这些发现丰富了对不等井数的聚类方案的广阔空间的理解，并证明了如何利用这些井垫配置来利用不断变化的环境来发挥自己的优势。在此计算研究的基础上，现在可以高度肯定和有把握地断言，采用不等井数的集群进行工业部署与适当的组织措施相结合，可以提高该水平井垫开发项目的净现值百分之几到百分之几十。这些发现丰富了对不等井数的群集方案的广阔空间的理解，并证明了如何利用这些井垫配置来利用不断变化的环境来发挥自己的优势。在此计算研究的基础上，现在可以高度肯定和有把握地断言，采用不等井数的集群进行工业部署与适当的组织措施相结合，可以提高该水平井垫开发项目的净现值百分之几到百分之几十。这些发现丰富了对不等井数的聚类方案的广阔空间的理解，并证明了如何利用这些井垫配置来利用不断变化的环境来发挥自己的优势。在此计算研究的基础上，现在可以高度肯定和有把握地断言，采用不等井数的集群进行工业部署与适当的组织措施相结合，可以提高该水平井垫开发项目的净现值百分之几到百分之几十。