Posted on 01/25/2016 10:08:32 PM PST by Citizen Zed
Edited on 01/26/2016 12:16:33 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
“Well, back when I was doing it there was no such thing as horizontal on land. 250k and honest cost for a simple straight hole then. Horizontal just amazes me.”
I have a story on the horizontal.
Back in 1983 while working for a North Sea major, some French Elf engineers came into my office in London and told me they worked at the Elf lab outside of Paris and told me they had developed a way to drill oil wells horizontal and were there to see if I had any interest.
I laughed them out of the office as I told them “why would anyone ever need to drill a well horizontal”.
Now 32 years later I am still shamed at not being able to recognize what I believe now to be the greatest technological achievement during my 40+ years. That includes 3D seismic and deep water drilling, completion and facilities.
Call me a convert.
Two of my sons, one a mechanical engineer, have almost 10 years ea in horizontal/directional and they tell me they can his a 10 foot square target 15,000 feet away!!! One kept the drill motor within a 15 foot zone for 8,000 feet. Just unbelievable to me. All the “experts” think fracking is the new hot shot reason we have such and increase in production but they do not realize it is actually horizontal/directional drilling.
My dad told me the first well he was ever on with hydraulic fracking was in 1949 in Oklahoma and the last count I heard we had approx 700,000 wells in the US that had been fracked.
London, eh? Ever eat any Haggus?(sp) LOL
the Bakken zone we were drilling got as low as 10’ thick and we always drilled 10,000’ horizontals and stayed in zone 99.5% of time. To get out of zone meant we hit shale and generally called for a sidetrack, a no-no.
If your dad was fraccing in ‘49, that was wayyyyy early. The ones I read about were in the ‘50s and were not hydraulic, but by lowering nitroglycerin downhole and detonated. Being on a well fracced this way must have caused some high-risk.
Yes, I have tried Haggis, a Scottish food rather than English. Not too bad I thought.
The explosives were used up to and for some time after 49 but hydraulic wasmore predictable and a whole lot safer. I cant imagine a bunch of roughnecks playing around with nitro!!! What could go wrong?
A friend of mine that spent some time in england during the early 70’s with Mclaren Racing had lots of stories about English food!!!
It was mostly pretty awful stuff, except the fish and chips takeout.
Most people I knew there(including myself) ate at Chinese, Indian and Italian restaurants. And the best hamburger in London was a McDonalds at Hyde Park Corner, so that tells you something.
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