With ever-growing energy demand, drilling professionals are continually challenged to extend cost-effective drilling frontiers. This situation is further aggravated by the need to access the ends of reservoirs, using enhanced hydrocarbon recovery, without affecting environmental footprint. This requires drilling several long laterals. Drilling long laterals—mostly extended reach and, lately, ultra-extended-reach and super laterals—requires cutting-edge technologies to navigate the complex drilling environment.
A combination of advanced tools with embedded artificial intelligence enabled an operator in the Middle East to drill an ultra-extended-reach well to 50,000 ft measured depth in 2023, while other operators in South America drilled super laterals with lateral lengths in excess of 5 km. Completing and casing of the laterals for efficient recovery has required an altogether different technological innovation. Operators in Australia constructed Technology Advancement of Multilaterals Level 5 smart junctions, building on the experience gained in the North Sea while further optimizing them through several operational iterations.
The process of pushing the boundaries of what is possible in extended drilling and completions required significant feats of engineering ingenuity. These included establishing an extremely delicate balance of wellbore stability while minimizing friction and drag, using state-of-the-art drilling assemblies for smoother wellbores, predicting formation properties, and using surface well-control equipment and practices. Autonomous drilling, advanced materials, real-time data analytics, and operational best practices were some of the main ingredients in the recipe of this excellence.
As technology continue to evolve and reservoirs become more challenging to access, the drilling industry is further improving its efficiency and derisking operations through the use of artificial intelligence, lighter and stronger pipes, and sophisticated data analytics.
This Month’s Technical Papers
Multifunctional-Team Approach Achieves Extended-Reach Record Offshore Abu Dhabi
Study Explores Challenges, Potential of Superlaterals in the Vaca Muerta
Study Reviews Multilateral Installation Improvements on the North West Shelf
Recommended Additional Reading
SPE 216337 Buoyancy Technology Used To Successfully Install Casing in Argentina’s Longest Extended-Reach Slim Well Pad by C. Bahl, YPF, et al.
SPE 216151 New Technologies and Practices To Enable Remote Operations, Increasing Complex Long Multilateral Horizontal Wells and Enriching Project Sustainability and Efficiency: A Real Case From Northern Europeby A. Dixit, Baker Hughes, et al.
Syed Zahoor Ullah, SPE, is a planning lead for SLB in Norway, responsible for multiple drilling projects in the North Sea. He holds a bachelor of engineering degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore. Before moving to Norway, Ullah was a well engineering lead for SLB in the Middle East, responsible for managing an engineering team for multiple drilling rigs with high-volume/high-frequency operations. He has nearly 15 years of experience in the industry and is the author or co-author of 11 SPE papers. Ullah has been a technical committee member and session chair for the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exposition and Conference and is on the technical committee for the 2024 SPE Norway Subsurface Conference.