Revised Drilling Practices Lead to Lateral-Length Gains in Marcellus Shale

A drilling team has focused on increasing lateral lengths in the Marcellus Shale. The team determined which operational practices would need to be revised in order to drill and case laterals in excess of 18,000 ft. During a 12-month period of revised processes and upgrades, the team drilled 34 horizontal wells, each exceeding 12,000 ft in lateral length, which represented the first Marcellus lateral to exceed that length.

Introduction

At the time of writing, the team had drilled more than 1,050 Marcellus wells in the state of Pennsylvania. In the first decade of development (2006–2016), it drilled hundreds of Marcellus horizontal wells with laterals ranging from 1,500 to 11,000 ft.