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Horizontal drilling technique could unlock trillions in cubic feet of natural gas nationwide
The quest for natural gas has been called this century’s gold rush, and more area gas companies are getting creative in their extraction techniques.
Instead of conventional downward drilling, the companies are going the way of their offshore counterparts — horizontally.
“It’s very different because if you talked about using horizontal drilling methods 15 years ago for onshore purposes, people would have laughed you out of the industry,” said Ken Morgan, a geology professor at Texas Christian University and director of the TCU Energy Institute. “But with the new technology out there, that has all changed.”
Morgan said horizontal drilling has been around since the 1960s, when oil and gas companies set up platforms in the Gulf of Mexico’s Outer Continental Shelf to extract gas. In recent years, researchers have worked to improve ways to tap into natural gas deposits beneath land, he said.
“For years we were literally only scratching the surface with vertical drilling, where we could only hit oil and gas deposits that were 300 feet to 400 feet below the surface,” Morgan said. “Now we can reach the gas thousands of feet below.”
The technique, worked on for more than 18 years, was introduced in 2003 by former Mitchell Energy owner George Mitchell and Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy. Morgan said horizontal drilling allows the companies to hit rich deposits of natural gas at a slant with a drill bit controlled by a computer. Once the hole is set, he said gas contractors blast water and sand into the hole, cracking the rock and extracting the gas — a step known as fracing.
Morgan said slant drilling has transformed the U.S. natural gas industry.
What are your thoughts on this technique?
Comments
By marti
July 15, 2009 11:07 AM | Link to this
please ask the staff writer to update this article with more information which would clarify the technique of horizontal drilling. “Slant” drilling is a poor description and misunderstood by many people. Some would relate the term to a drilling procedure from years ago. Maybe a good source would be someone who actually drills horizontal wells.
By J. Blalack
July 6, 2009 6:11 AM | Link to this
JR watches too much TV.
By JR Ewing
July 5, 2009 11:04 PM | Link to this
It’s very obvious that none of the previous people posting comments have any mineral or royalty interest in a gas or oil well. It’s not their fault. Most people don’t have royalty interests. I’m lucky enough to have some and it’s a wonderful thing.
The problem for royalty owners and the natural gas companies with unlocking trillions of cubic feet of gas is that with an overabundance of supply, the price will go down. Now, while that helps the consumer, it hurts both the royalty owners and the natural gas companies. They don’t like to drill when their profit margins get so low as to not return a profit on their investment.
And that’s what a lot of people don’t understand with the oil companies. They have millions and perhaps billions of dollars invested in drilling operations. Every dollar they make in profit is a dollar well-earned.
By Jobrater
July 5, 2009 12:22 AM | Link to this
“Horizontal drilling technique could unlock trillions in cubic feet of natural gas nationwide” Wow! Really? Now if we can figure out how to control malaria we can get that Panama Canal built one day! Has anyone heard of Haynesville Shale?
By Lori
July 4, 2009 10:01 AM | Link to this
“Creative in their extraction techniques”. Kind of like Frank and Jesse James were creative with their bank withdrawal techniques?
By J. Blalack
July 4, 2009 9:49 AM | Link to this
This type of drilling will infringe on the mineral rights of others, unless an Oil, Gas & Mineral Lease is obtained by the operator for the property under which the operator is extracting the natural gas.
In the 1950s’ this was called slant-hole drilling. Taking natural gas from others without compensation.
As a young boy in Longview, I can remember my dad telling me about operators going to jail for slant-hole drilling.