Abstract
ADCO and NDC launched its Well Delivery Limit (WDL) initiative in May 2000 to deliver the step change in performance required to meet its business objectives of increasing production capacity and containing technical costs. In partnership with Shell's Drilling The Limit* philosophy, WDL's performance management system challenges the true value of ADCO's well delivery operations, as opposed to simply doing the same things in a faster and cheaper way. Two years into the initiative, WDL has been implemented on all ADCO rigs with great success and new ways of working have been created by breaking down the barriers between departments in addition to those between ADCO and its Contractors.
From an operational perspective, ADCO has reduced well construction time by more than 30% and reduced cost by 8%. In addition to this, substantial improvements in well quality and HSE performance have been achieved, demonstrating the positive impact that WDL has made on ADCO's entire business.
The successes to date have essentially been in the form of time and cost savings, but even more can be gained by applying of the process to the entire well lifecycle. In other words, now that ADCO have learned how to "drill the well right", focus has shifted to the higher-level objective of "drilling the right well right". This next step has already been implemented on new development projects where existing practices have been challenged to ensure that the overall field development objectives are met in an optimal manner.
