The Badila oil field in Chad is developed with horizontal wells. A new drilling team at Glencore came to the project after two wells had already been drilled, both with unplanned sidetracks. Their first well was also problematic, with an avoidable sidetrack.

The team then thought hard about how to change their fortunes. They worked to understand what led to the problems, then sought to find solutions, incorporating their whole team to find them. Importantly, they recognised they had not been thorough enough in planning and executing tasks to avoid surprises and asked themselves how they could change their focus. They turned to Eikos as a reference tool for their Well Delivery Process to address this question.

With the WDP organised in Eikos the team asked good questions. For subsequent wells the multidisciplinary team showed they owned the process as much as the Drilling Manager. They demonstrated they were all in it together, with the same level of care to understand each other’s challenges.

Badila was ultimately a successful project for Glencore’s Drilling and Subsurface team. Eight horizontal wells in a row were drilled and completed without sidetracks after the previous three all had them.

Jesus Cabello, Drilling Manager said:

The big value we get from Eikos is it enables us to have better conversations about well delivery on a regular basis. It lets everyone in the team understand progress and what is critical. It removes friction and helps us focus on the right things.