A Conference Note From Jon Gates

Drilling Trends Continue to Point to Pad Drilling, Longer Laterals for Production and Efficiency Gains
Drillers at the show stressed the importance of efficient drilling programs and lower drilling costs. Presenters highlighted their strategy for drilling longer laterals and increasing pad drilling. They also added commentaries on down-hole tools, geo-steering, completions designs and measurement while drilling tools (MWD).

Longer Laterals and Multi-Pad Pad Drilling
Conference presenters highlighted the push toward longer laterals for cost efficiency and production gains across the industry. The benefits of drilling longer laterals include lower costs per lateral foot drilled, fewer drilling locations and higher initial production (IP).

Range Resources  Corp. is spending $2.5 million (including cement and casing) to drill a 3,000-foot lateral or $833 per lateral foot. To drill an additional 3,000 feet, costs were $466 per lateral foot, a savings of 58% per lateral foot. Moving to 10,000-foot laterals (including cement and casing), costs averaged $330 per foot or a 66% savings. Laterals in the Permian have been averaging 4,500 feet, but the Permian is amidst a shift to longer laterals, with conference sources seeing them pushed out 7,500-8,000 feet, which confirms lateral length extensions averaged in OTR Global’s March 3 Pressure Pumping and Completions Report.

Apache Canada Corp. also highlighted that longer laterals result in the best IPs and that multi-well pads, using walkable rigs, are more efficient.

CanTex Energy highlighted its East Mississippian Basin play, where the keys to improving well performance have been to increase lateral lengths, add fracture stages and fine-tune completion techniques. CanTex prefers to drill five to six multiple extended reach laterals from one (pad) location by utilizing rail sliding or rolling top drive rigs.

Plug and Perf and Ball-Activated Systems Contrasted Once Again
In terms of completion designs, Range mentioned that it is seeing a lot of efficiency gains using coiled tubing when it performs plug-and-perf zipper fracturing, even when it tests the limits of the coiled tubing and has to run a workover rig. Range currently feels comfortable running coiled tubing to a limit of 7,000 lateral feet and running a workover rig beyond that. In the Marcellus, Range prefers coiled tubing because it allows it to move quickly between different well bores and frac stages, which enhances the ability to zipper frac.

CanTex doesn’t case or cement its laterals and uses a workover rig to complete the well, resulting in lower cost, less time, and the ability to do open-hole completions. Open-hole completions allow CanTex to get more consistent fracture zones.  

Proppant Volume
Oak Valley Energy analyzed its logs and took a close look at perf locations, proppant volumes and mix. Patterns emerged that favor a higher volume of proppant per stage, mostly raw sand with a tail of resin coat. Oak Valley is tending to push as much proppant in the ground per stage as it can in order to get the best production. “If you can put it in the ground and it’s helping me, then I think it needs to be there,” said a drilling engineer.

Rotary Steerables, Geo-steering and MWD
Range has been adopting the use of rotary steerables and likes the estimated 35% cost savings it provides, but the company is still working toward the goal of drilling 3,000-4,000 feet/day.

Alternatively, Approach Resources Inc. admits the concept and the ability to drill better curves using rotary steerables is superior but can’t justify the use in its application. It is still testing different bit designs. Approach is drilling 8,300-8,900 foot laterals, achieving anywhere between 2,200 and 4,200 feet of lateral in a day with the use of conventional technology.

Apache mentioned that rotary steerables are not the best option for what it is drilling. Most presenters highlighted the importance of geo-steering, MWD and logging tools in drilling precise laterals and staying in zone.

Oak Valley highlighted the use of 3D seismic to analyze the target window within the lateral and monitors its location within the target window with the use of geo-steering and MWD tools.

When: February 26-27
Where: Houston, Texas
Who: The conference was attended by roughly 300 industry people from regional operators, drilling engineers, coiled-tubing companies and field service professionals
What: The conference targeted drilling optimization programs; down-hole technologies, including the use of rotary steerables; and how to drill wells to optimize completion/production.