Doglegs in laterals

Anyone come across a case where a preliminary well plat (prior to drilling) shows a gas company has intentionally built a horizontal curve into a lateral with the goal of bending around an unleased parcel? 

Now I'm not talking about shifting a lateral over a bit and drilling close to a unleased property but rather curving the lateral out and then back in, around the property, to reach the gas in the unleased properties "shadow".  I would guess this technique would be useful for small properties directly in the path of a lateral where an operator is confined or can't spread out the laterals for various reasons.

Lastly, I commonly see vertical dog legs prior to laterals reaching the "landing point" but thereafter a constant azimuth (in PA this commonly around 340 degrees) seems to be the norm all the way to the bottom hole.  On final title mappings it's common to see deviations which occur in the azimuth and inclination planes during drilling, however, these are normally not planned.

Any thoughts,

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Permalink Reply by Philip Brutz on October 26, 2013 at 7:13am
Permalink Reply by Susquehanna Sally on October 27, 2013 at 4:18am

Excellent topic and great graphic....but one cannot make the assumption that avoidance of specific parcel(s) determined the direction of this particular lateral.  

I have heard rumors about "drilling around" unleased parcels but at this point they are just that, rumors.

Permalink Reply by Brian Powers on October 28, 2013 at 7:05am

lettijack-

I've not seen the situation that you describe, but I can imagine it occurring. In the early days of directional drilling, some unscrupulous operators would "corner-shoot" into suspected undrained rock to gain a production/ reserve advantage. In "Rule of Capture" states, it would be up to the lessor to drill their own well to capture the reserves themselves.

 

Dog legs are measured and tracked during the drilling process, the unit of measurement is degrees per 100 ft drilled or degrees in 30 meters drilled internationally. In vertical wells, it is common to limit the DLS (dog-leg severity) to 1.5to 2 degrees/100 ft. and a maximum of 5 degrees per 100 ft in the higher angle holes. Most of the shale laterals have liners with frac sleeves run into them before completion, and if the dog-legs are too high, the liners often get hung up, making for a bad day(s) to resolve.

 

Brian

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