What Are The Applications Of Directional Drilling?

What Are The Applications Of Directional Drilling?

Directional drilling companies allow very easy solutions to otherwise seemingly difficult projects like using precision grinding wheels.. There are a few different ways this way of drilling can be used which are outlined in this article.

STRAIGHT HOLE DRILLING

Straight hole drilling is a special case of directional drilling where a hole needs to be kept exactly vertical. Some reasons for wanting to keep the hole vertical are:

  1. To keep from crossing lease lines;
  2. To stay within the specifications of a drilling contract;
  3. To stay within the well spacing requirements in a developed field

CONTROLLED DIRECTIONAL DRILLING

Controlled directional drilling is used when drilling multiple wells from an artificial structure such as offshore platforms, drilling pads, or man-made islands. The economics of building one offshore platform for each well would be prohibitive in most cases. However, since wells can be directionally drilled, forty or more wells can be drilled from a single platform. Without controlled directional drilling, most offshore drilling would not be economical.

INACCESSIBLE LOCATIONS

There are times when oil deposits can lie under inaccessible locations such as towns, rivers, shorelines, mountains, or even production facilities. When a location cannot be constructed directly above the producing formation, the hole can easily be drilled by a directional driller.

FAULT DRILLING

Directional drilling is also applicable in fault drilling. It is sometimes difficult to drill a vertical well in a steeply dipping, inclined fault plane. Often, the bit will deflect when passing through the fault plane, and sometimes the bit will follow the fault plane. To avoid the problem, additional holes can be drilled pathed in a way which encourages the drill bit to follow the correct path.

A highly specialized application for directional drilling is the relief well. If a well blows out and is no longer accessible from the surface, then a relief well is drilled to cut off the uncontrolled well near the bottom. Water or mud are then pumped through the relief well and into the uncontrolled well. Since it is sometimes required that the relief well intersect the uncontrolled well, the directional drilling has to be extremely precise and requires special tools. Survey data is not accurate enough to intersect a wellbore at depth. Proximity logging is required when drilling relief wells.RELIEF WELL

DRILLING MULTILATERAL WELLS

Directional drilling can also be used to drill multilateral wells. You may ask what Multilateral wells are? They’re additional wells drilled from a parent well. Multilaterals can be as simple as a short sidetrack or it can be more complicated with a full intersection.

Directional drilling can help allow an easy solution to a seemingly challenging job in almost every situation it can be used in. Using the services of a professional directional drilling company who will help you plan, prepare and carry out the task at hands makes this solution accessible to anyone regardless of skill or experience in the industry.

Alison Lurie

Alison Lurie