Pad drilling at a glance
- What it is
- Drilling multiple wells from one surface pad
- How the rig moves
- Walks or skids between slots on hydraulic feet
- What it saves
- Move time, cost, and surface footprint
- Where it's standard
- Shale — including Permian cube development
- What it needs
- Walking-capable AC super-spec rigs
Pad drilling is the practice of drilling many wells from a single, shared surface location — the pad. Rather than dismantling the rig and moving it miles away for the next well, the rig simply repositions a few feet to the next slot and drills again. A modern pad may host anywhere from a handful to a dozen or more wells in a tightly spaced row.
How a walking rig moves between wells
The technology that makes pad drilling possible is the walking (or skidding) system. The rig sits on a set of hydraulic feet — essentially powered legs — that can lift, shift, and set the entire substructure down a few feet at a time, all without rigging down. The rig "walks" sideways to line up over the next wellhead slot.
The difference from the old way is dramatic. A conventional rig move means rigging down, loading dozens of truckloads, transporting them to a new site, and rigging back up — days of non-productive time per well. A walk to the next slot on the same pad can take hours instead of days.
Skid vs. walk: "skidding" slides the rig along rails or skid beams in a straight line; "walking" uses hydraulic feet to move in any direction, including rotating. Both keep the rig assembled and avoid a full rig-up — see how oil drilling works for the rig-up/rig-down cycle being avoided.
Why operators love it: time, cost, footprint
Pad drilling concentrates three big efficiency wins into one practice:
| Benefit | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Less move time | Walking to the next slot replaces a multi-day rig move, slashing non-productive time between wells. |
| Lower cost per well | Shared infrastructure — roads, power, facilities, and water — is spread across many wells instead of one. |
| Smaller surface footprint | One pad disturbs far less land than a dozen scattered sites, reducing surface and environmental impact. |
| Batch operations | Drilling similar sections across many wells back-to-back lets crews repeat the same task and get faster each time. |
Because the wells share so much, the savings compound: the more wells per pad, the lower the average cost of each.
Pad drilling, shale, and Permian cube development
Pad drilling and horizontal drilling grew up together. Once a rig could steer long laterals, operators could fan many horizontal wells out from one pad into a single reservoir — the foundation of modern shale development.
The Permian Basin pushed this furthest with cube (or "stacked") development: drilling many wells from one pad that target several stacked reservoir layers at once, using a three-dimensional "cube" of rock in a single coordinated campaign. It maximizes recovery per pad and minimizes the surface disturbance and infrastructure spread across an entire field.
What kind of rig you need
Not every rig can drill a pad. Walking capability requires a modern AC super-spec rig — high-horsepower, AC electric drive, fast-moving, and fitted with a walking or skidding system. These rigs command a premium, but their ability to move quickly between slots and drill long laterals efficiently is exactly what pad and cube development demand. The combination of walking systems and super-spec rigs is a big reason shale operators standardized on a relatively small fleet of high-capability rigs.
Running a pad campaign? rigs.work connects operators with supervisor references and consultants experienced in pad and cube development. Open the related reference — by basin and window, organized for fast lookup.
Common questions
Planning a multi-well pad?
Open role guides, system notes, and basin context from the reference library.