Horizontal Drilling Minimizes Footprint
November 1, 2011
The advent of horizontal drilling — also called directional drilling — has allowed developers to access reservoirs of oil and natural gas thousands of feet beneath the surface that could not be reached with vertical drilling. This technology, combined with hydraulic fracturing, has allowed developers to extract millions of barrels of oil from the Bakken Shale.
You can learn more about the process of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing by watching this video. First a wellbore is drilled vertically into the shale thousands of feet below the surface (and below the underground aquifer). The drilling process then makes approximately a 90-degree turn into the shale formation and extends the wellbore, horizontally, up to an additional 10,000 feet. Drilling horizontally into the Bakken Shale intersects and frees oil and gas from the vertical fractures that contain deposits inherent to the shale in the Bakken region. When combined with hydraulic fracturing, this technique vastly increases the productivity of oil and natural gas extraction.
This technology not only reduces the number of wells that need to be drilled to extract oil and natural gas, but it also protects the impact to and view of the environment by minimizing the above-ground impact of development. Strict standards and regulations are in place to govern the process of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing which further protect the environment and public safety.
Read more about the technology here.
Read more about the Standards and Regulations that govern horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing here.
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