multiwell drilling
Introduction
Multilateral-well technology is revolutionizing the way that reservoirs are accessed by wells. The ability to create wells with multiple branches that can target widely spaced reservoir compartments provides engineers unlimited options in optimizing economic extraction of oil and gas. Along with this opportunity comes the inherent complexity of these well architectures. Multilateral Wells is intended to illuminate the most important aspects of multilateral wells in a concise way and give readers practical tools they can apply in the design and analysis of multilateral wells, while also pointing to the appropriate literature for more advanced studies.
Theory
…Definition
What is a multilateral well?
“A multi-lateral well is one in which there is more than one horizontal or near horizontal lateral well drilled from a single main bore and connected back to that main bore. or Multilateral wells are new evolution of horizontal wells in which several wellbore branches radiate from the main borehole. ….Explanation
Advantages
The main advantage to the use of multilateral wells compared to conventional horizontal wells is cost reductions. The cost to drill and case down to the productive reservoir can represent as much as 60% of the total cost of a conventional horizontal well.
This is only done once on a multilateral well. The cost reduction using a multilateral well instead of several horizontal wells having the same total length in the pay zone has been proven in fact. However, it is all the more important for fields located offshore, on platforms where the number of slots are limited, or in any situation when drilling pads are required
(swamp environments for example).
Multilateral-well technology is revolutionizing the way that reservoirs are accessed by wells. The ability to create wells with multiple branches that can target widely spaced reservoir compartments provides engineers unlimited options in optimizing economic extraction of oil and gas. Along with this opportunity comes the inherent complexity of these well architectures. Multilateral Wells is intended to illuminate the most important aspects of multilateral wells in a concise way and give readers practical tools they can apply in the design and analysis of multilateral wells, while also pointing to the appropriate literature for more advanced studies.
Theory
…Definition
What is a multilateral well?
“A multi-lateral well is one in which there is more than one horizontal or near horizontal lateral well drilled from a single main bore and connected back to that main bore. or Multilateral wells are new evolution of horizontal wells in which several wellbore branches radiate from the main borehole. ….Explanation
Advantages
The main advantage to the use of multilateral wells compared to conventional horizontal wells is cost reductions. The cost to drill and case down to the productive reservoir can represent as much as 60% of the total cost of a conventional horizontal well.
This is only done once on a multilateral well. The cost reduction using a multilateral well instead of several horizontal wells having the same total length in the pay zone has been proven in fact. However, it is all the more important for fields located offshore, on platforms where the number of slots are limited, or in any situation when drilling pads are required
(swamp environments for example).