Putting time on Endeavor’s side:
raising drilling efficiency with AI-powered scheduling software

Seeking a better way to analyze operational scenarios

Headquartered near its Permian Basin drilling and completion operations, in Midland, Texas, Endeavor Energy Resources, L.P. is a privately held exploration and production company, with more than 1,200 employees. Endeavor is one of the largest private operators in the United States, holding approximately 370,000 net acres in the Core 6 Midland Basin counties, and over 500,000 net acres across multiple basins. Opportunities for success at Endeavor seem limitless.

In 2021, though, the company’s drilling and completions program scheduling tool was proving to be too cumbersome, and the process of communicating schedule changes and their impact was inefficient. Making changes in the drilling schedule required tedious manual work and consumed valuable time. At times, well interference issues weren’t visible until it was too late. Endeavor’s management recognized that, to support expected growth, the company needed a better way to analyze schedule scenarios to decide on the best course of action.

Setting out criteria for an optimal scheduling solution

Realizing that their existing scheduling solution was resulting in loss of efficiency and productivity, Stephen Pope, Endeavor’s Scheduling Engineer, was given the go-ahead to explore other options. He identified four key criteria that a new software tool had to meet: “We needed a drag and drop feature for fast, easy to use scheduling, as well as a way to quickly report and analyze the drilling program data. It was also important to have the ability to manipulate the schedule and then create various scenarios. Lastly, we needed a solution that would allow us to achieve accurate forecasting.”

Endeavor chooses Actenum

After looking at multiple scheduling solutions, Endeavor chose Actenum’s DSO software. DSO met all of Endeavor’s criteria. It’s a powerful, built-for purpose scheduling and optimization software tool that drives significant value for operators, since it uses AI to optimize the entire drilling and completion program. It brings together construction, facility, drilling, completion, and workover activities, along with all required operations data, and readiness milestones, in a single software tool. Featuring a drag-and-drop Gantt chart user interface, DSO makes it easy to model operations accurately, and ensure that the schedule is automatically aligned with business goals. Since it’s designed to be an integrated scheduling solution, capturing information about all upstream activities and resources, DSO enables companies to use a single scheduling tool to synchronize and optimize all their operations. It’s easily integrated with external systems that hold well production curve data (such as ARIES, Mosaic, and PHDwin), so that production forecasts may be created for any schedule. Moreover, the software identifies well interference issues early, and also features the ability to rapidly and easily create “What if?” scenarios, with advanced data analytics that enables users to gain insight into how scheduling decisions will impact key business metrics, such as costs and production.

Immediate process improvements

By using Actenum DSO, Endeavor benefited from process improvements immediately. In terms of efficiency, the software requires far less time for loading and manipulating data than Endeavor’s previous tool. As a result, Stephen is able to spend more time focused on creating scenarios and moving projects forward. As well, DSO’s use of defaults for activity durations and costs enables him to pull drilling averages every quarter and use them as new defaults, so he can swiftly adjust the entire schedule based on up to date information from the drilling program. In turn, this provides a much more accurate assessment of what the company’s full drilling program will entail and yield.

Stephen also makes extensive use of Actenum DSO’s “well halo” capability, which enables potential interference between wells to be identified early, so that costly errors and a great deal of last-minute schedule updates are avoided. The software shows where interference is likely to occur so that steps can be taken to avoid it.

Saving 25% in monthly planning time

With Actenum, Endeavor has significantly increased its ability to create a consistent schedule, and eliminated the need for laborious and tedious changes on the go. Stephen says he’s saving about 10 hours a week of scheduling time. At 40 hours each month, this translates into a full extra week of time freed up to spend on more important work. “During our pilot of Actenum DSO, we were able to identify 10 hours in time savings in a typical business week through improved efficiency using DSO’s robust UI and out-of-the-box configurability,” says Stephen. “Going into the new year, for example, we were more confident in the number of wells that we were forecasting to drill, frac and put on production. The information yielded by DSO allowed for our best estimations of default durations based on area, formation, and even specific resource. Prior to DSO, we were using standard durations for every well, which is far less accurate.”

Optimal communication and improved visualization

Besides enabling Stephen Pope to work more effectively, everyone at Endeavor is benefiting from a complete, single-source view of the drilling program schedule, available from DSO. All team members can share, view, and report on consistent up-to-date schedule information. Everyone sees accurate information, when they need it, all in one place, and understands why any schedule changes have been made. The flexibility of the software’s layouts, and the ability to tweak coloring and numbers within the Gantt chart enables Endeavor to rapidly generate all the reports needed for everyone involved, including landmen, procurement, reservoir engineers, and other groups within the company.

One particular feature that is key for Endeavor is DSO’s ability to export specific schedule metrics to Spotfire through an OData feed. Stephen has developed a Schedule Dashboard that is reviewed weekly, and it enables him and his colleagues to review schedules against various scenarios to identify how each one ranks according to key metrics. Stephen says, “It allows us to plan our business with eyes wide open.”

Make the most of your time

The right scheduling software should put time on your side, not make you waste time adjusting and then checking things manually. It should provide accurate and detailed information to reduce the time it takes to make informed decisions about how to move forward with your drilling program. With Actenum DSO, Endeavor is now able to schedule faster and more accurately, and the company gains immediate insights into how any changes will impact costs, resource use, production, and other business goals.

More Information

To learn how Actenum DSO will bring benefits to your business, contact us by email at info@actenum.com.

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