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Now that you mention it, you’re right. Lots of folks are wondering just whose gas the wells are extracting. I remember hearing about a driller locally that got run off because they ended up with a dog leg in the bore.

A dogleg is inadvertently becoming crooked, so much that the drill string begins to rub along the sides of the borehole where the bends are. It can become stuck because of the friction or it can wear holes on the pipe. Drillers try to keep a hole within a certain tolerance - say 3 degrees from vertical.

A horizontal well is purposefully kicked off from the vertical with a smooth transition to a 90 degree lateral. By law, this lateral is confined with the outline of the production unit that they have set up. In Pennsylvania, it is probably a standard section, which is 640 acres or one square mile. Most laterals are around 4000' so it would remain with the limits of the unit. Of course, they then frac the lateral in multiple stages to help reach out beyond the borehole. Think of a horizontal well as a replacement for multiple vertical wells. Fields that were at best marginally productive can now be commercial.