Established drilling practices help deliver projects, but overreliance on past assumptions can drive unnecessarily conservative designs, higher costs, and missed opportunities.

By leveraging SLB’s DrillPlan™ coherent well planning and engineering solutions, energy services company IPT Well Solutions challenged long-held assumptions about casing design and rig requirements in a Wyoming development—reducing well costs by about USD 1 million per well while maintaining operational objectives.

Beyond traditional planning assumptions

In the high-volume land market, there is often significant pressure for drilling engineers to execute projects as quickly and efficiently as possible. As a result, planning decisions frequently draw on the successful designs of neighboring operators.

According to Jim Jacobson, drilling manager at IPT Well Solutions, this approach is understandable but can lead to unnecessary conservatism.

"Most drilling engineers are under pressure to start projects quickly and keep costs down," Jacobson explains. "The easy solution is often to look at what other operators have done and follow a similar path."

While this reduces perceived risk, it can also prevent teams from identifying more efficient alternatives.

Rethinking drilling in the Mountain West

When IPT began planning a series of wells in Wyoming, initial engineering assessments indicated that a relatively large drilling rig would be required to safely execute the project.

The project team’s priority was to develop a robust casing design that could withstand drilling and production loads while maintaining safe operating margins, and the first two wells were drilled on that basis. One faced operational difficulties due to an underpowered rig, while another was executed with equipment better matched to the well’s requirements.

As the program expanded, IPT drew on its early experience and used DrillPlan solutions to reassess its original design assumptions—achieving transformational results.

How DrillPlan solutions changed the conversation

IPT began by loading multiple wells into DrillPlan solutions and evaluating predicted casing-running and hook loads across the development program. Using the platform's engineering models, the team discovered that estimated hook loads were approximately 25% below their original calculations.

That insight fundamentally changed the project's rig strategy.

"DrillPlan was able to predict expected hook loads that were significantly lower than our back-of-the-napkin calculations," says Jacobson. "That really turned on a light for us."

The team then compared DrillPlan solutions predictions against actual performance data from previously drilled wells—the close correlation between predicted and observed loads gave IPT confidence that the models accurately represented field conditions.

Armed with this validation, engineers determined that the wells could be drilled using a much more common rig class than originally anticipated. Instead of sourcing from a limited pool of highly specialized rigs, they could now select from hundreds of readily available rigs with lower hook-load capacities.

The impact was substantial. IPT estimates that optimizing rig selection alone generated savings of up to USD 10,000 per day while maintaining operational performance.

Data-driven decisions unlock significant savings

The Wyoming project illustrates how digital planning tools can help engineers move beyond assumptions and make decisions based on validated data.

By using DrillPlan solutions to evaluate multiple well designs simultaneously, IPT was able to:

• Assess casing-running loads with greater confidence.
• Validate design assumptions against actual field performance.
• Reduce unnecessary safety margins.
• Optimize rig requirements.
• Streamline development planning across multiple wells.
• Lower overall drilling costs without increasing risk.

Collectively, these improvements helped slash approximately USD 1 million from the cost of each well. "A lot of times you can save money by questioning what has been done before," Jacobson says. "You can often find a lower-cost solution that performs just as well, if not better."

More engineering, less burdensome admin

For IPT, the value of DrillPlan solutions extended beyond engineering calculations. Traditional well planning often requires extensive manual work across spreadsheets, Word documents, and multiple versions of project procedures.

Even minor design changes can trigger hours of document updates and cross-checking. DrillPlan solutions replaces much of this manual effort with a connected digital workflow. Rather than updating numerous documents individually, engineers can modify project parameters within the platform and have associated calculations and planning outputs update automatically. This enables engineers to spend more time solving technical challenges and less time performing administrative tasks.

"The old way involved a massive cut-and-paste undertaking," Jacobson explains. "DrillPlan doesn't allow for that. You build the project once, and when something changes, everything updates automatically."

A blueprint for the future of well planning

The Wyoming project underscores how digital planning is reshaping drilling engineering. With applications such as DrillPlan solutions integrated into daily workflows, operators can evaluate scenarios, streamline execution, and make more informed decisions, faster.

And in a margin-driven industry, the ability to turn data into action is a clear competitive advantage.