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CUDD Well Control

Well Control Drills

Well Control Drills:

Validate Your Plan
Before You Need It

Having a Well Control Emergency Response Plan is a starting point — not a guarantee. The companies that respond effectively to well control incidents are the ones whose teams have practiced the plan, identified what does not work, and fixed it before an actual emergency. Cudd Well Control facilitates drills that make that possible.

Schedule a Well Control Drill

WHY DRILLS MATTER

The Cost of Having a Plan Nobody Has Practiced

A recent well control incident illustrated exactly what can go wrong when a company has a plan on paper but no practical familiarity with it. Despite the plan’s existence, key personnel at the site did not know it existed. The response was disorganized, resources were mobilized out of sequence, and the incident cost significantly more than it should have — in time, money, and operational disruption.

Well control drills close that gap. They give your emergency management team practical experience executing your plan in a controlled, non-emergency setting — so the first time they run it under pressure is not the first time they have run it at all.

WHAT CUDD WELL CONTROL DRILLS COVER

What Your Team Practices During a Drill

Establishing Command and Control on Scene (ICS structure)
Operating in the Command Post Environment
Devising Safe Work Zones for Well Control Operations
Prioritizing and Requesting Resources Efficiently
Developing the Site Safety Plan (ICS-208 SSP) and Incident Action Plan (ICS-201 IAP)
Managing Mutual Aid Capabilities
Gathering and Evaluating Air Monitoring Data
Enforcing Safety Policies During an Emergency
Establishing Proper Evacuation Distances
Aligning Response Priorities with Achievable Outcomes
Completing the Internal and External Notification Sequence
Developing Consistent Messaging with Jurisdictional Agencies

DRILL FORMAT OPTIONS

Remote or Onsite — We Work Around Your Operation

Tabletop Exercise (Remote or Onsite)

A structured, scenario-driven discussion exercise for your Emergency Management Team. Participants work through a simulated well control event from initial notification through the critical first 12 hours of response. Ideal for testing command structure, communication protocols, and decision-making.

Full-Scale Drill (Onsite)

A comprehensive exercise involving your full response team — wellsite crew, command post personnel, and relevant office-based teams. Designed to validate the entire response chain under realistic conditions.

Functional Exercise

A mid-level format that activates specific components of your response plan — notification procedures, resource requests, or external communications — without a full-scale field deployment.

THE WELL CONTROL EMERGENCY PLAN

If You Don’t Have a WCEP — We Can Build One First

A Cudd-developed WCEP includes:

Incident notification procedures — corporate, state, and local regulatory
Well control event level definitions
ICS roles and responsibilities for the wellsite and office-based response teams
Data forms for documenting essential incident information
Approved vendor contact list for specialized equipment, materials, and services
Multi-well pad considerations — collateral damage prevention, proximity operations
Provisions for drilling, completion, and production operations

AFTER THE DRILL — DEBRIEF

What Happens When the Drill is Done

Every drill concludes with a structured debrief covering:

The top 5 strategic priorities identified by the scenario
The top 3 external communication challenges expected in an incident of that magnitude
The 3 key pre-planning elements that would have expedited response
The 5 most critical resources for an incident of that severity
Areas where strong incident management was demonstrated
Areas where improvement is needed — with specific, actionable recommendations

When Was the Last Time Your Team Ran Your Plan?

Schedule a Drill
Call +1 713 849 2769