In 2016 and 2017, Kolibri Global Energy (NASDAQ: KGEI, TSX: KEI) needed approximately 30 days to drill a one-mile horizontal well in the Caney Shale of Oklahoma's Tishomingo Field. By 2024, its one-mile wells averaged 12 drilling days. In the spring of 2025, the company drilled the four Lovina wells, each with a lateral half again as long, in an average of under 10.5 drilling days apiece.
That progression traces a decade-long operating learning curve, one that continued as the wells got longer. It also captures Kolibri's approach to shale drilling cost reduction: drill one field repeatedly, apply what each pad teaches to the next, and extend laterals once the drilling performance supports them.
Why Longer Laterals Change Kolibri's Unit Economics
Every horizontal well carries a set of fixed costs that have little to do with how far the wellbore runs sideways: the surface location, rig mobilization, the vertical section, and the casing strings down to the target depth. Extending a lateral from one mile to a mile and a half or two miles adds drilling days and completion stages at the margin, against a fixed base that was already paid for, while placing roughly 50% to 100% more lateral in contact with the target formation.
Operators across U.S. shale have been extending laterals for the same arithmetic. The benefit becomes more pronounced when a company can drill the longer wells without a proportional increase in rig time.
How Repetition Reduced Drilling Time
Kolibri's move to 1.5-mile laterals began with the three Alicia Renee wells, drilled in 2024. Those wells averaged approximately 14 drilling days each, about two days longer than the company's recent one-mile wells, in exchange for 50% more lateral.
In 2023, Kolibri forecast approximately $7.2 million to drill and complete a one-mile Caney well. Its last four one-mile wells came in at an average of approximately $5.5 million, and in its December 5, 2024 release, the company estimated the three Alicia Renee wells, half again as long, at an average of less than $6.3 million each for facilities, drilling, and completion. Each 1.5-mile well was expected to cost less than what Kolibri had budgeted for a one-mile well two years earlier.
The four Lovina wells that followed cut the drilling time again. “We are extremely pleased with the excellent job our team has done drilling these longer lateral Caney wells,” President and CEO Wolf Regener said in the company's May 7, 2025 announcement. “The further 25 percent reduction of drilling days between the Alicia Renee wells and the Lovina wells is significant.”
These are drilling-time figures, not measures of the full cycle through completion, hookup, and first sales; the cited materials do not provide a spud-to-first-sales figure. Shorter drilling still moves the front end of that cycle.
The Advantage of a Concentrated Operating Position
Kolibri holds approximately 17,700 net acres in the Tishomingo Field, operates almost every well it drills there, and has 45 Caney wells on production. Its history with this formation predates the Caney program: the company drilled and participated in roughly 40 Woodford Shale wells at Tishomingo before selling the deeper Woodford rights to an Exxon Mobil subsidiary while keeping the rights to the Caney and upper Sycamore above it. The engineers planning today's laterals are working a field the company has logged, cored, and produced for well over a decade.
Because roughly 99% of the acreage is held by production, no lease expiration forces the schedule; wells get drilled when the economics say so. “We've had the luxury of being able to drill where we want to, when we want to, rather than being concerned about losing acreage,” Regener told investors at the Lytham Partners Spring 2026 Investor Conference. The existing gas gathering system lies within a mile of all proved locations, according to management, so new wells connect without long build-outs.
The December 31, 2025 reserve report, prepared by NSAI, books 89 gross additional Caney locations at six wells per section: 48 proved, 24 probable, and 17 possible, mainly 1.5- and 2-mile laterals. Against that inventory, Kolibri forecasts 2026 average production of 4,700 to 5,200 BOEPD, up 17% to 30% from 2025, with Adjusted EBITDA of $56 million to $62 million at an assumed $70 WTI price. Drilling efficiency is one input to that forecast, alongside commodity prices, well performance, and capital timing.
Where Efficiency Meets Geology
Kolibri's first Clifton Mack 1.5-mile well ran into unexpected geologic conditions, including subsurface pressures that forced a complete redrill with a redesigned casing program carrying extra casing strings. The company disclosed on June 29, 2026 that the Clifton Mack wells will cost more than its standard Caney design as a result, and its updated 2026 forecast absorbs those additional costs.
Management has characterized the issue as specific to local geologic conditions, applied the redesigned program to the second and third Clifton Mack wells now being batch drilled, and noted that the pressures encountered are supportive of high production rates from the pad. The standard Caney design continues elsewhere in the field. Well costs do not fall in a straight line, and a field still holds surprises after 45 wells.
What Comes Next
After drilling the Clifton Mack wells, the rig is scheduled to move to the Lovina 5-8-1H, a two-mile lateral targeting the False Caney, a bench above the Caney that is prospective across roughly 9,900 net acres of Kolibri's block. The Clifton Mack wells are expected to be completed in the third quarter. The Upper Caney, T-Zone, and Sycamore lie in the same acreage, with early tests in some and none in others, and no reserves attributed to any of them in the current report.
Whether the drilling performance built in the Caney transfers to two-mile laterals and new benches will be one factor in determining whether those currently unbooked intervals add materially to Kolibri's existing 89-location Caney inventory.
Sources: Kolibri Global Energy July 2026 investor presentation (drilling-day averages by year, well cost budgets and actuals, acreage, well count, Woodford history, bench detail, and reserve location detail); Kolibri press releases dated December 5, 2024 (Alicia Renee well cost estimate), May 7, 2025 (Lovina drilling days), and June 29, 2026 (strategy update, Clifton Mack disclosure, and revised 2026 forecast); remarks by President and CEO Wolf Regener at the Lytham Partners Spring 2026 Investor Conference. Reserve figures are from the Form 51-101F1 Statement of Reserves Data for the year ended December 31, 2025, dated March 17, 2026, prepared by Netherland, Sewell & Associates, Inc. Production, revenue, and Adjusted EBITDA figures for 2026 are company forecasts and are subject to change. Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP measure.