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Permalink Reply by Grillin' - MmmMmm on October 2, 2009 at 6:48

Generally, well bores are oriented with respect to directions of stress within the rocks. Results from the Barnett indicate that lining out the wells this way had a positive impact on rates and recoveries. Since the Barnett is the largest experiment going, some of these results are being utilized in the HS and other shale plays. Now sometimes the geography prevents this, but with the section units in North Louisiana, it shouldn't be a big issue where unitization is occurring. Surface use may also impact things to a lesser extent.

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Permalink Reply by Terry L. Antee on October 2, 2009 at 8:10

Encana is drilling wells east west on some of their wells, lets see how they turn out?

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Permalink Reply by Bacon on October 2, 2009 at 8:31

The BSTMA well in s17 14/11 is an ECA E/W horizontal and was just completed and is in clean up phase right now. Hopefully I'll have more info on it next week.

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Permalink Reply by Grillin' - MmmMmm on October 2, 2009 at 10:45

Sounds good. I haven't pulled a lot of information on directionals in the Haynesville. Have lots in other shale plays that I'm active in. Be very interested in seeing if the correlation holds water. Of course, there are so many other moving parts, might be difficult to isolate. But if generally they are as good as others, then that's good news.

However, I've seen wells in close proximity that were drilled by 2 different operators have very different results. That old nasty learning curve is saying company X can drill the same rock as company Y, drill the same distance, but company Y's results are better!

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Permalink Reply by P.G. on October 3, 2009 at 4:04

Is it possible to drill laterals from laterals?

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Permalink Reply by BirdDawg, plain ole' idiot on October 25, 2009 at 12:21

Do what?

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Permalink Reply by Grillin' - MmmMmm on October 26, 2009 at 0:43

There are several examples of "laterals off of laterals". In the Appalachian region, a couple of companies use what's termed "pinnate" drilling. Drill a long lateral, then drill 6-8 laterals coming off of that one. Looks like a feather.

Also, an old drilling contracting company I worked for did something similar in heavy oil sands in Venezuela. They drilled for a major US company; from what I was told, they would drill a lateral, then come off of the lateral in several directions, opening up several smaller laterals. called it a fishbone. they then would go into the fishbones and drill small sections off of them. Sounds wild. I think it worked, though. Till they got kicked out of Ven.

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Permalink Reply by Les Bamburg on October 26, 2009 at 2:40

GM, some of the later oil developments in Saudi Arabia utilized this well pattern. The key difference is none of those wells were frac'ed horizontals - just horizontals.

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Permalink Reply by Grillin' - MmmMmm on October 5, 2009 at 7:15

Another post made me think a bit. What information do you have that the ECA wells are east/west? Not doubting your input, just checking. It is possible that using SONRIS surface and bottomhole locations, you could infer one direction of lateral but in fact, it wasn't. For many of the pad drilling sites, the wells come off the pad, go out a ways and then are turned. If you draw a straight line from surface location to BHL, you get one angle but in 3-dimensions, the lateral is moving at a different angle. For instance, drill the "vertical" section of the well slanted, take it out due East and then at HS depth, turn it north. The resulting surface view would be a well east-northeast, when actually the lateral was north south.

Given that, it would be difficult to get one exactly E-W when the lateral went N-S. Could be done, but not practical! But directional drillers are pretty darned good these days! But as I state below, there's a lot of new ideas being tested these days and the proof is in the production pudding!

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Permalink Reply by Bacon on October 5, 2009 at 8:02

Hmmm, dunno. I assumed that if the bottom hole coordinate was directly west of the pad 4 or 5000', that thats the direction it was going. I'll ask the ECA guy when I get ahold of him. STR has an interest in the well also and the person I was speaking with there, said that they were very interested in this well due to the e/w direction.

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Permalink Reply by Grillin' - MmmMmm on October 5, 2009 at 11:16

If the BHL is the same distance from the SHL as the lateral length, then you are right. But the geometry gets pretty funky so I could draw something out easier that describe it. But if STR is interested , then its probably a good sign that the lateral will be oriented EW too.

I'll check out some other sources within the drilling community and also look at some of ECA's presentations/investor materials.

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Permalink Reply by Bacon on October 5, 2009 at 11:18

Just talked to the ECA guy. Confirmed that this is an east west well. Turned to sales on 10/2. It's producing 3 mmcfd right now. 6800#'s pressure and rising. Still making a lot of water. He thought it might get up to 11 or 12 ultimately. He said that they probably were not going to be doing more of these E/W laterals unless surface issues dictated it. Said they had an E/W well around Stonewall that was still making water 6 months later and was doing 11 mmcfd but they realize now that E/W doesn't work so good in this area. So much for experimentation. Ouch.

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