Driving AFE confidence for frontier exploration drilling in Guinea-Bissau

Reducing cost uncertainty in West Africa frontier drilling

Deepwater drilling campaigns are inherently complex, with high financial stakes, significant uncertainties, and many stakeholders involved.

Apus Energy needed a way to accurately forecast their Atum-1X well time and costs and manage uncertainties throughout the Guinea-Bissau exploration drilling campaign.

Apus Energy’s criteria for a reliable time and cost estimate for its frontier deepwater wildcat well — the first deepwater well offshore Guinea-Bissau in 20 years — included a digital well delivery software solution that could be updated in real time to reflect major project uncertainties across logistics, contracts, and objectives.

Apus Energy aimed to use a cloud-native time and cost management software that is easily accessible to all team members, enhancing collaboration and ensuring that all stakeholders work with the same data, providing a single source of truth.

How iQx PLANS made a difference in Apus Energy’s Atum-1X Well

• Data-Driven decisions: PLANS provided forecasts for well duration and costs with visuals and detailed AFE
• Uncertainty management: helped the team better understand and plan for potential risks and outcomes
• Collaboration: as central data point, all team members stayed well-informed, making it easy to follow up on tasks and monitor project progress efficiently.

What value did iQx PLANS bring to this frontier deepwater drilling campaign?

• The user’s first ever exploration drilling campaign stayed within budget and schedule, avoiding overruns
• iQx PLANS, using Monte Carlo simulation modelling, helped streamline the well planning with highest focus on risk management

Key features leveraged: probabilistic cost and time estimation, uncertainty analysis, and risk management

iQx PLANS played a crucial role in mitigating unforeseen events and optimizing well delivery.