Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dion Warr, CPL on October 14, 2010 at 5:06

Jack:

Theoretically, the answer is "as many as you can fit on the pad". Functionally (except for pads exceeding 40 acres), I would say the answer would be four (this assumes 40 acres or less centered on the unit/section corner), with two surface locations on the north half of the pad (on each side of a unit boundary) drilled south into the adjcent units, and the two surface locations on the south half of the pad (again, on either side of a unit boundary)drilled north into the adjacent units. This also assumes a drilling spacing of eight north/south laterals per unit, being 1/8 of 5280' = 660' apart, and no perforated lateral being closer than 330' from the unit boundary.

Now, could you directionally drill from the superpad to a point 660'+ further east or west from the nearest lateral, and then kick off lateral (giving you up to 8 wells from a single pad)? Certainly possible, but at a certain point the cross section of the vertical sections of all the well bores from the pad start to look like strands of spaghetti. It would probably be easier to find another pad at some point.

You could also extend laterals in any particular direction, which would upwardly revise the number of functional wells, but the assumption for the most part based on general faulting patterns is that the prevailing orientation of laterals should extend more or less north-south, with east-west laterals being more or less unfavorable. At any rate, changing the orientation of laterals from a single pad for this purpose is fruitless since faulting patterns will not change that drastically from unit to adjacent unit.

As to your other question: your O&G guy is incorrect. There are more than a few instances of wells being drilled from a surface location located outside of the unit and being drilled directionally into the unit, with perforations only inside the adjacent unit. The whole purpose of doing this would be to maximize the functional lateral length inside the unit (Skip and others have covered this extensively on other threads). The most that may be required would be to obtain permission from OOC for the surface location to be located outside of the prescribed boundaries; honestly, it wouldn't surprise me that the Commissioner hasn't begun to issue blanket orders in each field to allow such to occur under prescribed circumstances, or that the District or BR isn't allowing same just by approval of the well permit - I must admit I have not paid close attention to the administrative procedures in that regard.

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Permalink Reply by Jack Blake on October 14, 2010 at 10:28

thx

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Permalink Reply by The_Baron on October 15, 2010 at 4:15

If you believe Exco:

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Permalink Reply by Dion Warr, CPL on October 15, 2010 at 12:04

Baron:

OK, I stand corrected. Looks like a situation where the lessees either really doesn't want to allow drilling in any other sites in the section, or there are no other viable sites in the section.

My curious question would be: are they just that unconcerned that only about 75% of the theoretical max lateral length is being utilized (at least according to the entry points on the plat), or does the concern of the use of lessor's surface outweigh any concern in decreased performance due to the lack of perfed / frac lengths of the laterals?

Per these drawings, I would think that the cost of drilling the directionals to reach the kickoff points would add an aggregate 20%+ to the costs of drilling these wells as a series of vertical well bores, and getting probably 20-25% less contact with the pay zone than maximum allowable.

I'm sure they know what they're doing, though. They're getting good enough IPs without my input.

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Permalink Reply by The_Baron on October 15, 2010 at 16:03

Dion,

This was one of several designs put forth in recent unit hearings.

It seems Exco and Encana are both interested in hte Superpad concept. It was my understanig that some of these would be drilled, and then fraced at the same time. Personally I don't know enough to answer some of your questions, but I do know that when you start drilling directionally, it gets expensive.

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Permalink Reply by The_Baron on October 15, 2010 at 16:05

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Permalink Reply by Henry on October 15, 2010 at 23:09

It is strange that they don't drill the "vertical" part of the well a bit southward, and then come back northward so they can do the first perf at 330' from the south line of this section. Maybe that would require having to go under sec 33 to do so, for some reason they didn't want to get a well bore easement?

There is an interesting plat of a proposed CHK well in 22-11-11 on sonris. (I cannot figure out how to get the pciture into this discussion, so you'll have to go to sonris to look.) The surface location is almost 1000 ft from the north line of the section. The plat seems to suggest CHK will drill northward with the "vertical" part of the well and then bend it over more than 90 degrees and run the lateral back southward. That's a much larger bend angle than shown on these wells.

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Permalink Reply by FXEF on October 16, 2010 at 13:09

Henry,

Here is the 22-11-11 plat from SONRIS. Maybe some of the directional drillers can explain how this well bore will run.

Attachments:

• 22-11-11_plat.pdf, 84 KB

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Permalink Reply by Dion Warr, CPL on October 18, 2010 at 11:19

FXEF:

I am not a directional driller (IANADD - LOL), but it would appear that CHK's options in the above example were at least somewhat constrained by the Dolet Hills Lignite Mine (which takes up right about half of the section. They probably took what they could get without running afoul of SWEPCO / CLECO.

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on October 18, 2010 at 11:35

Me either. However it appears somewhat obvious that the surface location is further south than normal in order to stay off of the SWEPCO/CLECO tract. And that CHK is angling the vertical portion of the well bore north to make up for that surface location before bending the radius back south to drill the lateral.

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Permalink Reply by FXEF on October 18, 2010 at 15:07

Skip,

That's the way it appeared to me, but I was not sure. I did not realize that was part of the Dolet Hills mine.

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Permalink Reply by DrWAVeSport Cd1 on October 15, 2010 at 7:41

A look at directional drilling/S-curve wells/Questar/drilling from Super Pads... This document covers the "life changes quickly" world of O&G. This document shows some recent historical data per directional drilling in the Rocky Mnt Basin (not HS-type drilling). However, it shows drilling impact on land surface, environmental impact on and changes made toward use of Super Pads and the benefits. Again, not HS type drilling, but interesting info (IMO).

Note: Colorado has water/environmental impact ?s per the drilling rush there. This document was produced prior to the World financial crash and downward dive of nat gas prices.

DrWAVeSport 10/14/2010

Looking @ nat gas prices...$3.56 Too much gas, Not enough end-use product. Looking forward to the reverse scenario!

Attachments:

• Directional-Drilling.pdf, 1.5 MB

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