Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Brian Powers on November 28, 2012 at 7:49am

pat -

The Marcellus, Utica, and other unconventional shale formations have extrordinarily low permeability and ultra low hydrocarbon mobility. In my view, between well migration within the matrix rock should be a very low risk. If the regional stresses were such between the Whipkey well and a prospectve location on your property to align both bottom hole locations along the axes of naturally occuring fractures, then migration may become more of a possibility. In my experience, you have to have several things ocurring before migration happens: 1) permeabilty or connectivity between locations in the sub surface, 2) mobile hydrocarbon- (gas or liquid), and 3) a pressure differential must occur before any migration happens.

You've got a higher chance of winning the Powerball draw tonight than suffering any gas migration, given the information in your query.Good luck!!!

 

I hope this helps,

 

Brian Powers

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Permalink Reply by pat fiegen on November 28, 2012 at 3:50pm

thanks brian,sounds like you know your stuff.often wondered if lengh and direction of horizontal pipes are monitored?i have seen   THERE WILL BE BLOOD   and thought how that might apply in the Marcellus.

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Permalink Reply by Brian Powers on November 29, 2012 at 8:46am

Pat - Thanks for your reply. I was directly or indirectly involved in many of the well construction (drilling/completion/backflow) or production issues adressed on this forum during my three decades in the business.

 

Regardless of the well orientation (vertical, high angle, or horizontal), key measurements taken while drilling include depth, azimuth(direction), and DLS (dog leg severity, which is the number of degrees of inclination change per 100 ft depth. A low DLS is preferable over a high DLS mainly for pipe running purposes.

 

My favorite completion type was barefoot (open hole) horizontal drilled to intersect a well understood natural fracture network- easy to drill and complete, easy to kick off to flow, natural fractures meant no hydro-frac required. Nice.

 

Brian  

 

 

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Permalink Reply by pat fiegen on November 29, 2012 at 2:24pm

thank you brian

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