Comparative Time—Cost Evaluation of Well Development Strategies in Pandawa Field

Abstract

This study presents a comparative engineering–economic evaluation of six individual well development strategies applied in the Pandawa Field, with emphasis on execution time and cost performance at the single-well level. The evaluated strategies include new well drilling, well deepening, mature well redevelopment using production casing or liner installation, and plug and abandonment. Casing and liner designs were verified using Landmark Stresscheck and treated as fixed engineering inputs for activity-based rig time modeling under optimistic, baseline, and pessimistic scenarios to represent operational uncertainty. Cost estimation integrates baseline rig time results with inflation-adjusted material and service costs using Producer Price Index (PPI) data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Comparative assessment is conducted primarily on total baseline development cost, with rig time used as a supporting indicator of operational complexity and cost sensitivity. Results indicate that workover-based strategies consistently outperform new well drilling in terms of time and cost efficiency, with liner installation providing the lowest baseline cost among existing well options. New well drilling exhibits the highest execution time and capital requirement due to its full drilling and completion scope. The results demonstrate the value of integrated time–cost evaluation as a screening tool for selecting cost-effective well development strategies in mature fields.