Why multilateral wells are better than typical horizontal wells?
Multilateral drilling is a new technology developed after directional drilling, sidetrack, and horizontal drilling. The technology can increase oil-drainage area, improve oil well production, and greatly reduce reservoir development cost through drilling several lateral wells in one borehole.
What are horizontal wells?
What Is a Horizontal Well? A horizontal well is a type of directional drilling technique where an oil or gas well is dug at an angle of at least eighty degrees to a vertical wellbore. This technique has become increasingly common and productive in recent years.
What is Multilateral well completion?
Multilateral completion systems allow the drilling and completion of multiple lateral boreholes within a single mainbore. This allows for alternative well-construction strategies for vertical, inclined, horizontal, and extended-reach wells. Multilaterals can be constructed in both new and existing oil and gas wells.
What are stacked lateral wells?
Figure 2: Stacked laterals are in the same vertical plane; opposed, or gullwing, laterals are in the same zone but run in opposite directions; and fishbone, herringbone, or whalebone patterns are created by numerous laterals that extend outward from a single horizontal main bore to cover the zone.
Why horizontal wells are drilled?
Horizontal drilling is a commonly used technology because drilling at an angle other than vertically can stimulate reservoirs and obtain information that cannot be done by drilling vertically. Horizontal drilling can increase the contact between the reservoir and the wellbore.
What is HDD method?
Horizontal Directional Drilling or HDD, is a steerable trenchless method of installing underground pipe, conduit, or cable in a shallow arc along a prescribed bore path by using a surface-launched drilling rig, with minimal impact on the surrounding area.
What is a lateral well?
Lateral wells, commonly called drainholes, are high-angle holes drilled radially, usually horizontally, from the primary wellbore into the pay zone to increase contact with the reservoir.
What is a horizontal Drainhole?
Horizontal Drainhole is the portion of a Horizontal Well drilled within the Field Interval that includes Take Points. Sample 1. Horizontal Drainhole means the portion of a well bore drilled laterally into a common source of supply for production or injection purposes.
How far can a horizontal well be drilled?
As operators and the drilling and service contractors have devised, tested, and refined their procedures, and as improved equipment has been designed and implemented, routinely achievable horizontal displacements rapidly climbed from 400 to over 8,000 feet.
Are horizontal wells fracking?
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, first invented in 1947, is the process of extracting oil or natural gas from rock formations through drilling – today, using a technique known as horizontal drilling – and then using high pressured water to move the natural gas or oil to the surface where it is collected.
What is HDD in pipeline?
Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) is a construction technique whereby a tunnel is drilled under a waterway or other designated area, and a pipeline or other utility is pulled through the drilled underground tunnel.
What is HDD equipment?
What are the disadvantages of directional drilling?
Disadvantages of Directional Drilling
- Difference in operating costs is too high.
- Expensive equipment need to be mobilized to push tools down the hole that are required for repairs.
- Prevention of sand influx into the drilling wells is less reliable and needs more effort.
Why is horizontal drilling better?
Directional or horizontal drilling allows producers more flexibility and precision in reaching and extracting oil/gas compared to vertical drilling. Horizontal drilling also reduces the ecological footprint of a drilling operation above ground by drilling in several directions from a single well pad.
How far can horizontal drilling reach?
What is HDD technique?
2.2 HDD Technique
HDD is a surface-launched, remotely controlled drilling technique using bentonite slurry to support the excavated tunnel, to transmit torque during pilot hole drilling and to transport the rock cuttings through a mud circulation system. Legend: Soil. Volcanic Tuff.
What is the difference between HDD and Microtunneling?
Microtunnelling is a pit-launched technique with extreme accuracy and low risk, but it has a high upfront cost. One the other hand, HDD is surface launched, making it cheaper than microtunnelling. However, it has a higher risk as it is less precise and there is a risk of flex along the pipeline.
How far can directional drilling go?
These technologies are capable of reaching 10,000–15,000 ft (3000–4500 m) and may reach 25,000 ft (7500 m) when used under favorable conditions.
How accurate is directional drilling?
The accuracy of the tool is 0.01° in pitch and 0.04° in azimuth. At the same time, the tool is not affected by magnetic fields from for example railways and cables.
What are the harmful effects of horizontal drilling?
Contamination of surface water bodies and groundwater resources from accidental spills and releases (from tank ruptures, equipment or surface impoundment failures, overfills, vandalism, accidents (including vehicle collisions), ground fires, or improper operations).
What is HDD engineering?
How long can you Microtunnel?
Microtunneling – MTBMs work best in soft formations and high water tables but they can be used to bore through all types of soil, sand, clay, and even through hard rock. Installation lengths can exceed 225 meters with varying depths.
What is the difference between microtunneling and pipe jacking?
Microtunnelling is well-suited to situations where a pipeline has to conform to rigid line and level criteria. A pipe jack is defined as a system of directly installing pipe behind an open-face tunnel boring machine (TBM).
How many feet can you bore a day?
Under good conditions, an experienced horizontal directional driller can install 200- 300 ft of pipe per day.
How far can a directional drill go?