A well cleanup process involves removing an impermeable filter cake from a formation face with thermochemical and chelating agents to allow formation fluids to flow from a reservoir to a wellbore. The method may be used with oil and water-based drilling fluids with varied weighting agents, e.g., bentonite, calcium carbonate, or barite. Such thermochemical agents may involve two salts, e.g., NO2− and NH4+, which, when mixed together, can generate pressure and heat, in addition to hot H2O and/or N2. For example, the thermochemical agents may comprise Na+, K+, Li+, Cs+, Mg2+, Ca2+, and/or Ba2+ with NO2− and NH4+ with F−, Cl−, Br−, I−, CO32−, NO3−, ClO4−, and/or −OH. The thermochemical agents in combination with a chelator such as EDTA can removed the filter cake after 6 hours with a removal efficiency of 89 wt % for the barite filter cake in water based drilling fluid, exploiting the generation of a pressure pulse and heat which may disturb the filter cake and/or enhance barite dissolution and polymer degradation.