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Multilateral/Extended-Reach Wells
Bernt S. Aadnøy, SPE, Professor of Petroleum Engineering, University of Stavanger
The development of multilateral wells The main benefit from There has been considerable develop-
and long-reach wells has become impor- ment around these technologies. Those
tant to maximizing recovery for many directional drilling is the that help clear the challenges, such as
fields. These technologies are often maximizing of reservoir those related to wellbore stability, well-
applied in offshore environments, where bore friction, equipment limitations,
large reservoir areas are drained from
recovery. From this and operational aspects, can be consid-
one or more platforms. perspective, multilateral/ ered mature technologies today.
In the late 1980s, long-reach wells extended-reach wells may The main benefit from directional
started to use existing infrastructure drilling is the maximizing of reservoir
better by drilling beyond the design lim- be considered one of the recovery. From this perspective, mul-
its of that time. Several major operators more important means of tilateral/extended-reach wells may be
were extending their limits, and, in the considered one of the more important
late 1990s, BP Wytch Farm showed that improved oil recovery. means of improved oil recovery.
a horizontal departure exceeding 10 km Although these directional-well con-
was feasible. This had a significant effect There were many drivers for this devel- cepts have been used for some years,
on the industry because offshore plat- opment. One of the more important was they were initially costly with a high eco-
forms now could be designed for up to the desire to increase production in tight nomic risk. There is a continuous tech-
10-km reach, as opposed to the early reservoirs. Another advantage is direc- nology development at many levels that
1980s when 3-km reach was common. tional control. Well stimulation with leads to improvements. These result in
A field could now be developed with one fracturing has the drawback that the more-efficient processes, with increased
platform instead of three, resulting in fracture direction is controlled by the field recoveries as a consequence. There-
enormous savings. in-situ stresses in the rock. Multilater- fore, multilaterals and extended-reach
Multilateral-well technology also al branches, on the other hand, can be wells are now common and will be very
matured during the past 2 decades. drilled in any direction. important for future cost-effective oil
and gas production. JPT