The Technologies that Conquered Unconventional

Reservoirs

Jorge Ponce
Completion and Stimulation Sr Advisor

Disclaimer:
This document is a compilation and transcriptions in certain cases from different
sources from the public domain and from comments received from different people.
Neither I nor the company I work for (Wintershall), make any warranty, expressed or
implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy,
completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process
disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe upon privately owned rights.
Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade
name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or
imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by me or the company I work
for. The views and opinions of the author expressed herein do not necessarily state
or reflect those of Wintershall thereof.
Initial quote:
“This history will never be completed, there will always be something new to insert
or correct”
Donald Kennedy
Introduction:
Mostly everybody recognizes that the success in the current development of
unconventional reservoirs is the result of four technologies: horizontal drilling,
hydraulic fracturing, multi-stage completion techniques and micro-seismic mapping.
The technologies alone could not make it, so they needed someone to spark them
up. The relentless perseverance of Mr. George Mitchell, who did not put his arms
down when preliminary results were not good at all was the igniter! and the rest is
history.
Some time ago I was searching when these technologies were successfully
introduced in the market and how they ended up together. Unfortunately, I could not
find a good timeline, so I decided to ask the SPE’s community for help. I received
plenty of feedback and amazing stories. In addition, I did my homework, I dug deeper
in my personal library and the internet and I asked other friends and colleges for
extra help.
As I got a lot of information, my initial project grew in scope, so I decided to share it
with the community. Even if I did my best, if someone finds information that is wrong
or disagree with certain opinions, feel free to correct them or propose alternative
facts. The intention is to have an evergreen document to capture this amazing story
and its history. I am not a professional writer, so please my apologies.

Background for the development of unconventional resources:

The seed of shale gas boom was planted in the late 1970s when the US government
decided to fund R&D programs and provide tax credits (and incentive pricing) for
developing unconventional natural resources in response to the severe natural gas
shortage at that time. These policies that stimulated the development of shale gas
in the Appalachian and Michigan Basin helped in the end to develop some key
technologies such as micro-seismic mapping and further extended the application of
existing technologies tailored for unconventional resources such as hydraulic
fracturing and directional drilling. Initially these policies set the stage for the
increased production of tight gas and coalbed methane (harvesting of low-hanging
fruits first!).
As early as 1968, the US Bureau of Mines began to examine the issue on how to
extract unconventional gas resources.
Several major studies commissioned by the Federal Power Commission, the Energy
Research and Development Administration (ERDA) and the US Department of
Energy (DOE) in the late 1970s suggested that the resource base of unconventional
gas could be very large and the efforts to develop those resources should be
encouraged and subsidized.
A federal law in 1974 created the Energy Research and Development Administration
(ERDA) by merging several separate research programs.
In October 1977, DOE was created to consolidate on one agency the responsibilities
for energy policy and R&D programs including those of ERDA.
The programs initiated by ERDA in 1976 and continued by DOE in 1978 has three
components: The Eastern Gas Shale Program, the Western Gas Sands Program
and the Methane Recovery from Coalbeds Program. The Eastern Gas Shale
Program was the most pertinent to the advance of shale development.
The passage of the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978 (NGPA), required phased
removal of wellhead price controls and provided incentive pricing for developing new
natural gas including gas from unconventional sources.
The Gas Research Institute (GRI), a nonprofit organization was established by the
gas industry in 1976 and began full operations in 1978. Its objectives were planning,
managing, and financing R&D programs in all segments of the natural gas industry.
GRI was fully funded by a surcharge on interstate natural gas transactions until 1998
when phaseout of the mandatory surcharge began. GRI managed a Devonian-age
Antrim shale R&D program in the Michigan Basin from 1989 to 1995 accelerating its
development. GRI also managed a coalbed methane R&D program from 1982 to
1996 which was terminated in 1982. GRI was also involved in R&D on tight gas
sands in east Texas and at the Multi-well experiment in Colorado.
The wellhead prices for Devonian shale and coal seams were deregulated on
November 1st, 1979 doubling the prices of regulated gas.
Due to the 1979 oil crisis, in 1980, the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Act was passed, part
of which provided tax credits for unconventional fuels. Now the scope was broader
not only including gas but also oil from shale and other sources. Unconventional
wells spudded between January 01st, 1980 and December 31th, 1992 were eligible
for tax credits and production from eligible wells would continue receiving credits
until December 31th, 2002.
In 2001, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), assessed the benefits and costs
of several DOE R&D projects including those related to unconventional gas
programs. The assessment included the evaluation of the most important
technological innovations in the 1980s and 1990s and the role of DOE in developing
those technologies. Three technologies were identified as critical for shale gas
development: horizontal drilling, 3-D seismic imaging and hydraulic fracturing. Micro-
seismic mapping was not fully developed and not analyzed in that report.
The Eastern Gas Shale Program revitalized the shale gas drilling and development
in the Appalachian (Devonian), Illinois and Michigan Basins, helped initiating the
development of other previously over-looked shale gas basins and took the lead in
demonstrating much more efficient and lower-cost shale gas production and
recovery technologies.
As part of the Western Gas Sands program, from 1994 to 1996, DOE and GRI jointly
funded a research project at the Multi-well experiment site to further develop and
validate hydraulic fracture mapping technology (micro-seismic), assess hydraulic
fracturing mechanisms and improve hydraulic fracturing stimulation models through
a more complete physical understanding of the process.
However, it was the private entrepreneurship of Mitchell Energy that played the
primary role in developing the Barnett shale in Texas. Government-sponsored R&D
programs did not target the Barnett shale and tax credits had a rather limited impact
on Mitchell Energy.

A brief history of oil and gas discoveries and well drilling:

Just for the sake of remembering these important milestones I want to put in context
when oil and gas were discovered in the world and when wells were drilled for
extracting those hydrocarbons.
The Chinese were the first people to drill wells, in around 2000 BC, using the cable
tool percussion method to produce brine. A chisel on bamboo rods was lowered into
the well on cables 1-4 cm thick and woven from Indian reed. The first wells in Russia
(percussion-rod method) were drilled in the 9th century and were also used to
produce a solution of common salt.
Gas was discovered in late 1825 in Fredonia, Chautauqua County, New York from
a shale formation (Dunkirk shale) at a depth of 27 ft. Gunsmith William Hart noticed
gas bubbling out of the bed of Canadaway Creek. He dug a slaty rock, with pick and
shovel into the Devonian shale. The gas provided the light of two good candles and
shortly it expanded to two stores, two shops and a grist mill. Gas was transported by
pipes built with small wooden pump-logs with tar-laden cloth over their joints for a
distance of several rods.

Site of the first commercial gas well in Fredonia, NY. Well was drilled by local
businessman and entrepreneur William Aaron Hart (1797 – 1865).
The world’s first drilling of an oil well, to a depth of 21 metres, took place on the
Absheron peninsula (in the Bibi-Heybat region of Baku) in 1846 by Russian engineer
F. N. Semyenov. Major Alekseev, director of the Baku oil fields, supervised the
operation which employed the percussion method, with wooden rods. Prince Mikhail
Vorontsov, Viceroy of the Caucasus, confirmed, in notes dated 8-14 July 1847, the
completion of the world’s first oil well on the coast of the Caspian Sea (Bibi-Heybat),
with positive results.
In 1857, Preston Barmore (1831 – 1862), with the backing of Elias Forbes,
purchased a small parcel of land on the east side of Canadaway Creek on which to
drill two gas wells. The first well failed to produce gas. In the fall of 1857 the well was
stimulated with 8 pounds of gunpower at a depth of 122 ft. This event happened
almost two years before the Drake’s well came in. The explosion expelled water in
the shaft, followed by a plentiful supply of gas as reported on December 16 th, 1857
by the Fredonia Censor newspaper. He used lead pipes to transport the gas to a
gasometer that was installed in downtown Fredonia to feed from there other places
including street lamps.

Map of Fredonia area, including Canadaway Creek, Hart’s well and Barmore’s wells
and gasometer
Gasometer in Center Street, Fredonia, NY circa 1964. Preston Barmore portrait.
The first metered use of natural gas was in 1858. It was charged at USD 4.00 / 1,000
cubic ft.
The history of the oil shale industry in the United States goes back to the 1850s; it
dates back farther as a major enterprise than the petroleum industry. But although
the United States contains the world’s largest known resource of oil shale, the US
has not been a significant producer of shale oil since 1861. There were three major
past attempts to establish an American oil shale industry: the 1850s; in the years
during and after World War I; and in the 1970s and early 1980s. Each time, the oil
shale industry failed because of competition from cheaper petroleum.
In Canada, in 1858 the first oil well is drilled at Oil Springs (Petrolia), Ontario. In 1859
natural gas is discovered in New Brunswick.
In US oil was discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania on August 29th, 1859 by ‘Colonel’
Edwin L. Drake (actually he had never been a colonel, just a railway conductor). He
was hired by Seneca Oil in 1858 to investigate suspected oil deposits by drilling in
the manner of salt well drillers. On August 27, 1859 Drake’s drill reached 69.5 feet
deep. As it was Saturday, work was stopped. The next day crude oil was rising up in
the hole. It is estimated that the well produced between 20 to 40 bopd and was sold
at 75 cents per barrel. He and his driller, William “Uncle Billy” Smith, used steam-
powered cable tool technology, an advancement from the ancient spring-pole. To
increase efficiency, Drake had invented a “drive pipe”. Drake failed to patent his
drilling invention. On October 07th, 1859 the well erupted in flames, perhaps
America’s first oil well fire. The fire at the first well site comes slightly more than a
month after the discovery. “The first oil well fire was started by ‘Uncle Billy,’ who went
to inspect the oil in the vat with an open lamp, setting the gases alight. It burned the
derrick, all the stored oil, and the driller’s home. Edward A. L. Roberts came to
Titusville several years after “Colonel” Drake. As Drake can be considered the father
of oil drilling, then Roberts may be considered the father of hydraulic fracturing. He
invented the “Roberts torpedo”.
Edwin Drake, right, stands with friend Peter Wilson of Titusville, Pennsylvania, at the
drilling site – but not the original derrick – of America’s first oil well. From the Drake
Well Museum collection. Modern picture of the reconstructed site.
Just four days after completion of America’s first commercial oil well in Pennsylvania
in 1859, a second attempt nearby resulted in the first “dry hole” for the young U.S.
petroleum industry. 22-year-old John Livingston Grandin began drilling America’s
second well to be drilled for petroleum. Despite not finding the oil-producing
formation (later called the Vanango Sands), the Grandin well produced technology
firsts for the young exploration and production industry, including: first dry hole, first
well in which tools stuck and first well “shot” with an explosive charge. Grandin knew
of petroleum seeps on Gordon Run of the nearby Campbell Farm and rode south of
town to buy the land. He bought 30 acres surrounding the oil spring at $10 per acre.
The well was drilled using the time-honored spring-pole method which would reach
almost twice as deep as Drake’s cable-tool effort. Drilling with the axle as a chisel
worked well enlarging the borehole – until it became stuck at 134 feet, “where it
never saw daylight again!” as described in a contemporary account. All attempts to
retrieve the axle drill bit failed. A drilling tool was lost down-hole for the first time. To
free the tool one of the drilling guys put together several makeshift “torpedoes” from
blasting powder and experimented with timing fuses in hopes of breaking things
loose. The explosion was sensibly felt upon the surface. Nothing was recovered and
with this noteworthy effort, the Grandin well was ruined in the first recorded
“shooting” of an oil well – and its first failure.
Warren County roadside marker remembering the Grandin Well (first dry hole).
In December 1859, less than four months after Edwin Drake’s first America’s first oil
discovery in Pennsylvania, a similarly determined wildcatter named Lyne (Lynis)
Taliaferro Barret began searching in an East Texas area known as Oil Springs.
Indians and early East Texas settlers had long known the Oil Springs area for its
seepage and used the crude for its purported medicinal benefit for both themselves
and their livestock. On December 15, 1859, Barret leased 279 acres near Oil
Springs, about 13 miles southeast of Nacogdoches, from Lucy W. Skillern. He began
drilling. Before he could find oil, the Civil War forced him to postpone his search.
Barret’s quest for oil was quickly underway again as he secured another drilling
contract with the heirs of Lucy Skillern on October 9, 1865. By December, he had
joined with Benjamin P. Hollingsworth, Charles Hamilton, John Flint, and John B.
Earle to form the Melrose Petroleum Oil Company. Barret would begin “making hole”
with a simple drilling technology. On June 9, 1866, he contracted with Benjamin T.
Kavanaugh for use of “Butler’s Improved Auger for Boring Wells” and a $50-dollar
purchase of two augers, on eight and a half inches in diameter or thereabouts, and
the other six and a half inches in diameter or thereabouts, with a coupling for the set
for connecting the augers with the stem or poles for boring. Throughout the summer
of 1866, the Melrose Petroleum Oil Company continued drilling and on September
12, 1866, Lyne Barret’s tenacity was rewarded. At a depth of 106 feet, the “No. 1
Isaac C. Skillern” struck oil. The well yielded a modest 10 barrels per day but remains
nonetheless the first commercially producing oil well in Texas.
Oil Springs is on Farm Road 226 southeast of Nacogdoches.
The birth of the Russian oil industry dates to 1864, when Colonel Ardalion
Novosiltsev drilled the first oil well (to a depth of 55 metres) in Kuban in the Kudako
river valley, by mechanical cable tool percussion. The first oil gusher was registered
in February 1866.
Ohio shale (Big Sandy field) was discovered in 1880. It is part of the Devonian shale
which produces gas and was part of R&D efforts in the 1990s.
The first Texas oil boom arrived in June 1894 when the Corsicana oilfield (North
Texas area) was discovered by a drilling contractor hired by the city (Corsicana
Water Development Company) to find water in Navarro County which is relatively
close to the Barnett area hit oil at 1,025 ft of depth. The well was later put on
production in October 1895. A refinery was established and production peak by 1900
to 829,000 bopd. The Nacogdoches oilfield remained the first and oldest in Texas
and as late as 1941 still recorded production of eight barrels a day from 40 wells.
Some of these produced into the 1950s. The much acclaimed Spindletop discovery
in southeast Texas did not occur until January 10th, 1901.
A gas production well was launched in Surakhany near Baku in 1901 at a plant
owned by Vasily Kokorev. One year later, gas extracted from a depth of 207 metres
was used to heat the plant; the gas was also transported to other areas of the
Absheron fields via pipelines. The Surakhany well was the first in the world to be
drilled for gas.
The birth of the natural gas in Texas is credited to the Petrolia field in 1906. In 1901,
James William Lochridge (1842 – 1909) owned a farm southeast of the current
location of Petrolia, Texas. About this time there was a drought and remembering
that his home place in Georgia had water wells, decided to drill one here. Enlisting
the help of a local man with a drilling machine, he drilled down to 150 feet. The driller
explained they had hit a dry hole, but he insisted on continuing. At about 156 feet,
on August 15, 1901, they struck oil. Since the world was just coming into the machine
age, there was no ready market for it. It was good only for killing mites on chickens
and greasing wagon wheels. The story goes that while he was in Henrietta, and
explaining what had happened, several un-scrupulous bankers hearing the story and
realizing the potential, took him to a saloon, and after several hours of drinking
persuaded him to sign over most of his mineral rights for virtually nothing. This was
the discovery well, and the first in the Permian Basin area that included North Texas
and Southern Oklahoma. Shortly thereafter, The Texas Company, represented by
W.B. Corlett, descended on the area and bought up all the mineral rights, usually at
about 50 cents an acre. Drillers and Roustabouts set up a shanty town they named
Oil City in the area, and during its heyday the population reached an estimated 1200.
Soon thereafter, the Wichita Falls & Oklahoma Railroad laid a track through the area
and across land platted by the Byers Brothers and named Petrolia after an oil
producing town in Pennsylvania. Most of the people planning a more permanent life
here, moved closer to the railroad and the current site of Petrolia. The oil at this level,
100 to 500 feet, was soon depleted and the industry declined. Drilling continued,
however, as the field turned out to hold the largest known reserve of natural gas in
the state. The first gas well was brought in on May 5, 1907, from a depth of 1,410
feet. The Lone Star Gas Company was created by partners George Washington
Crawford (1861 – 1935) and Milo Clinton Treat (1841 – 1925), with the help of
attorney L. B. Denning of Ohio, established the enterprise in Dallas as a pipeline
company allied with Corsicana Refining. At the time, Crawford and Treat owned a
drilling company in Marshall, Texas, and operated successful gas wells in several
states as well as the Petrolia field, which was Lone Star's major source for gas east
of Dallas. By 1909 lines were laid into Wichita Falls, making it the first city in Texas
with municipal gas service. By 1913 gas was being pumped to nearby cities and by
1913 was serving Dallas, Fort Worth, and twenty-one other towns. To manage his
growing business, Brown formed the Lone Star Gas Company in 1909 (the
predecessor to TXU Gas Company). The gas Brown pumped to nearby towns
contained .1 percent helium. In 1915 the United States Army built the first helium
extraction plant in the country at Petrolia, and for several years the field was the sole
source of helium for the country. Helium gas production decreased after World War
I, and the field ceased operations completely in 1921, when a better source was
discovered north of Amarillo.
In 1910, deeper drilling was started, and the industry revived due to major
discoveries. On December 17, 1910, a true gusher blew in; Dorthulia Dunn No. One
produced 700 barrels a day from a depth of 1,600 feet. The company was the J.M.
Guffey Petroleum Company of Beaumont, which later became the Gulf Oil
Corporation. The primary objective prior to 1910 had been to locate gas. By 1925 it
was evident that the field was entering the final stages of depletion and the cost of
extraction was becoming prohibitive. However, another field discovered in
December 1918 was the first one. The Amarillo Oil Company’s Masterson nº 1 was
drilled on Gould’s John Ray Dome prospect in Northern Potter County, TX and came
in at 15 MMscfgd at a depth of 1,670 ft. This was later called the Panhandle field.
Texon was founded on May 23th, 1923 when oi was discovered and named for the
Texon Oil and Land Company which drilled the first successful oil well in the Permian
basin. Carl Cromwell, a driller working for Texon, brought in Santa Rita nº 1, the first
gusher in the Permian Basin, on May 28th, 1923.
The first truly commercial and massive shale development was the Barnett shale.
The discovery well in 1981 was only tested because of it resemblance with the
Devonian shale play of the Appalachian Basin. Although this play is a gas shale as
development progressed some minor areas were found to be oil bearing.

Horizontal drilling:
The history…
Horizontal drilling as we know it today, it is the conjunction of several technologies
which include survey systems, bottom hole assemblies, MWD/LWD tools, bits,
down-hole motors, mud, etc. With the advent of computerized downhole telemetry
and durable downhole motors in the 1980s directional or horizontal drilling became
widespread and economic viability was demonstrated by several projects such as
Rospo Mare field in Italy (1982) by Elf Aquitaine, Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska (1984)
by BP and ARCO, Austin Chalk in TX (1985 – 1987) by Oryx, Mobil, Amoco and
Union Pacific Resources, Dan oil field in Denmark (1987) by Maersk and Bima and
Arjuna fields in Indonesia (1996 – 1997) by ARCO. But it took a long way to reach
the point we are at today. So to pave the road…
In 1873, the American H.G. Cross patented a machine with a hydraulic single-stage
turbine for well drilling and a turbine down-hole motor was constructed in 1883.
However, neither invention was implemented.
In 1890, Baku engineer K.G. Simchenko developed a turbo-drill (a rotational down-
hole hydraulic motor for rotary drilling). He received a patent for the invention five
years later. In 1897 another engineer from Baku, V.N. Delov, developed a turbo-drill
and later received a patent for his percussion electric drill on a cable. In the early
20th century, a Polish expert, Volsky, invented a rapid-percussion down-hole
hydraulic drilling motor (ram of Volsky), which found a practical industrial application
and became a prototype for contemporary down-hole hydro-percussions. Engineer
M.A. Kapelyushnikov (1886-1959) elaborated and tested single stage turbo drilling
with reduction gear in 1922-1923, marking a fundamentally new direction in the
development of technology and techniques in oil and gas well drilling. The first 600m
deep well was drilled in Surakhany in 1924 using Matvei Kapelyushnikov’s turbo drill.
In 1938, N.V. Alexandrov and A.P. Ostrovsky developed an electro-drill in which the
bit was rotated by a wholly new submersible motor. The first well drilled in 1940 using
Alexandrov and Ostrovsky’s advance was in the Azerbaijani Gala field.
In 1936-1940 Eyub Taghiyev was one of a group of engineers who devised a strong,
multi-stage, direct-drive, turbo-drill able to compete with rotary drilling and turbine
drilling became predominant in the USSR. Professor Taghiyev was awarded the
State (Stalin) Prize three times for his scientific work: in 1942 for the development of
turbine drilling; in 1947 for directional side-drilling; and in 1952 for simultaneous
drilling. The turbo-drills invented were to be significant in the drilling of deviating
wells. In 1941, an oil well 2000m deep was drilled successfully by Aga-Neymatulla’s
team in Ilyich bay by turbine directional drilling.
Drilling a well starts with a bit so…in 1909, Walter Benona Sharp (1870 – 1912) and
Howard R. Hughes, Sr. (1869 – 1924) were granted an US patent for the first two-
cone bit (US Pat 930,759). Around 1906 Hughes was conducting the first
experiments to replace the fishtailbit. According to various histories, at least six other
people did early work on their own versions of the invention, but Hughes' technical
savvy, impulsive streak, legal acumen and Harvard connections helped him win the
race to the patent office, affording him exclusive rights to a perfected dual-cone
rotary bit. In 1908, the Hughes Tool Company was founded by business partners
Walter Benona Sharp and Howard R. Hughes, Sr., father of Howard R. Hughes, Jr.
That year, they developed the first two-cone drill bit, designed to enable rotary drilling
in harder, deeper formations than was possible with earlier fishtail bits. They
conducted two secret tests on a drilling rig in Goose Creek, Texas. In the finest
tradition of oil-field secrecy, they boxed it, hid it in a burlap sack and ordered
everyone off the well site while they attached it to the drill pipe. The drill pipe twisted
off on the first test, but the second was extremely successful. Once the bit was
lowered, the crew was called back in. In 11 hours, it cut a 1,000-foot well in a field
otherwise deemed hopeless. The brutal efficiency of the tool earned it the name
Rock Eater. In a 1915 presentation to the American Institute of Mining Engineers,
Hughes showed how his device achieved a 75 percent reduction in drilling costs per
foot. In 1933, Hughes Tool engineers created a tri-cone rotary drill bit, and from 1934
to 1951 Hughes's market share approached 100%. The Sharp-Hughes Rock Bit
found virtually all the oil discovered during the initial years of rotary drilling. In 1959,
Hughes introduced self-lubricating, sealed bearing rock bits. After collecting data
from thousands of bits runs, Hughes introduced the first comprehensive guides to
efficient drilling practices in 1960; in 1964 saw the introduction of the X-Line rock
bits, combining new cutting structure designs and hydraulic jets.
First two-cone bit invented by Hughes and patented in 1909. Bit on the rig
“substructure”
Reuben Carlton "Carl" Baker, Sr. (1872 – 1957) received a patent in 1907 on a
casing shoe (rotary casing shoe) that revolutionized well cementing and thus
launched Baker Oil Tools. In 1921 he started working on an improved and simplified
dump bailer and also a cement retainer.

R. C. Baker and H. R. Hughes, Sr.

Since the invention of the carbide-supported polycrystalline diamond cutter (PDC)
by General Electric in 1971 (US Pat 3745623A), this technology has impacted nearly
all material removal industries. After being introduced into the drilling industry at HTC
by GE Carboloy in late 1972, the PDC cutter and bit technology progressed slowly
for several years. The major innovation was an “O” ring sealed journal bearing
tungsten carbide insert (TCI). This bit provided a step-change in performance, with
bit life and reliability increasing several folds. In July 1973, GE had arranged for the
first test run of one of its early bit designs to be made on an Exxon well on King
Ranch in South Texas. Bit cleaning was thought to be an issue in portions of the run;
three cutters failed at their braze joint, and two cutters broke through the carbide
studs. Subsequently, a second bit with improved hydraulics to focus on the cleaning
of the cutters was run in Hudson, Colo., where it was reported to have drilled fast in
a sand-shale sequence, but it deviated significantly from the prescribed well path
and again suffered several lost cutters due to suspected braze joint problems. In
April 1974, the third bit was run in San Juan, Utah. It had an improved stud design
and improved bit profile. It replaced three mill tooth bits on an offset well but suffered
from a lost nozzle and damage to the bit, thought to have occurred at the end of the
run from running into a hard formation or from the lost nozzle. A fourth bit, this time
a mineral exploration core bit, was run in early 1974 in an iron mine in Upper
Michigan, drilling into hematite strata, where the offsets were typically natural surface
set diamond bits. Through 1974-76, cutter improvements were evaluated by
established bit companies and entrepreneurs. Many of the issues that had been
identified were addressed. The solutions were incorporated into the Stratapax
product line of PDC cutters, which was introduced commercially by GE in December
1976. Several shapes and configurations became commercially available. It was a
period of much innovation and learning, although the rate of penetration of PDC
technology into the drill bit market was still slow. US Synthetic entered the PDC cutter
market in 1983. Starting by working in collaboration with customer-driven proprietary
cutter development programs focused totally on the drilling market from 1991
forward, they became the market share leader in 1997 and still hold that position.
They are a leading supplier focused only on the drilling market. They were the first
to commercialize a tough durable PDC cutter. The properties of the cutters were
gradually improved, and the long substrate cutter that had been introduced was
much more adaptable to the matrix-style bit technology that was adapted from the
surface-set bits and became favored for this product line. The ability to predict where
these bits would work best was gaining momentum as application expertise was
improved. Today, most bit manufacturers use computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
as a part of their bit hydraulics design process. Bits may be optimized for cleaning,
erosion or cooling, depending on the demands of a particular application.
The technology of horizontal wells itself can be traced back to September 08th, 1891,
when the first patent was granted to John Smalley Campbell (patent number
459,152) for equipment to place a horizontal hole from a vertical well using flexible
shafts. While the prime application described in the patent was dental, the patent
also carefully covered use of his flexible shafts at much larger and heavier physical
scales “... such, for example, as those used in engineer’s shops for drilling holes in
boiler-plates or other like heavy work which covered oilfield applications. It can be
considered the first short-radius drilling device.
Patent granted to J. S. Campbell for his flexible driving shaft.
Bernard Granville of New York applied for patent coverage on drilling apparatus in
1919 for drilling horizontal holes extending out from a main bore. He hoped to reach
a radius of several hundred feet with his apparatus. In 1929 and 1930 he received a
patent protection on two types of heavy duty flexible drive shafts which were invented
to drill lateral drain holes.
One of the patents B. Granville received for his invention.
The first deliberately deviated wells were drilled in the late 1920s. Hardwood wedges
were used, pushing the bit to one side of the hole and producing a deflection to direct
the wells from vertical toward an intended direction.
Between 1922 and 1931 four other patents were granted on different apparatus
invented for the same purpose but all of them seemed impractical. Probably they all
failed because they were not designed with sufficient strength to drill laterals
successfully.
In 1929, Cicero C. Brown founded Brown Oil Tools in Houston. In 1937, he filed for
a patent which was awarded in January 1940 on the first liner hanger (US Pat
2,186,324) that allowed drillers to lengthen their casing strings without having the
liner extend all the way to the surface saving capital cost and reducing the weight
borne by rigs. The patent was titled packer and setting tool combination.
In 1929, H. John Eastman introduced “controlled directional drilling” in Huntington
Beach, California using whipstocks and magnetic survey instruments to deflect the
drill pipe from shore-based rigs to reach oil deposits offshore.
Prior to 1929, the Bureau of Mines was making certain experiments on the
movement of oil in different reservoirs. Robert E. Lee from Coleman, Texas was
attending the experiments. He had an idea to use an air actuated bit (percussion bit)
to cut lateral holes. He designed and tested the apparatus and he filed for a patent
in 1930. Fields tests showed that a rotary bit would be better, so Lee redesigned the
apparatus and built an improved equipment. The new equipment was used to drill
lateral holes in several wells in Texas fields. The assembly consisted of four main
parts – a deflector section for forcing the bit to drill in a certain desired direction, an
air driven bit and reamer for drilling the lateral, a set of drilling segments directly
above the bit which flexed in one direction only and locked at the limit of the bend,
and a similar set of non-locking segments run above the locking sections and
connecting with the conventional drill stem. This BHA was successfully used to drill
the first truly lateral holes in 1929 at Texon, Texas, for the Big Lake Oil Co. Two 5
¼” lateral holes were drilled out 23 to 24 ft horizontally into the St. Andrews Lime at
depth of about 3,000 ft. The well increased production approximately 40 times.
Lee tried to verify that the wells were horizontals, so he made the first survey of a
drain hole in 1931. He used a set of acid bottles in short segmented barrels and from
these drift records he established that the bit was forced to drill on a very short radius.
In fact, one well turned upward to form a “U”. Sometime in 1939, Lee started to
redesign his angular drilling tool to overcome the disadvantages proved by
experience using air. Cutting removal was problematic and compressors expensive
and dangerous. He modified the system, so the bit was driven by rotating the drill
pipe at the surface like in conventional drilling. Drilling fluid was used to lubricate and
cool the bearings on the drive shaft and universal joints, as well as to remove
cuttings. This improved version was first tested in Brown County, Texas. Three 25-
ft lateral holes were drilled at a depth of 2,600 ft. Water was employed as circulating
fluid. The 5 ¼” bit worked as planned and better than the previous model. Well
increased production almost 7 times. In one well that produced oil, no increase on
production was observed. It was theorized that maybe water was causing some
problems, so he decided to use oil as circulating fluid. It would also serve as lubricant
for the moving parts. In 1935 and 1936 a number of wells were worked out in
Shackelford County, Texas using 30º gravity oil. Mostly all wells received 4 to 6 holes
in the producing zone. Laterals extended out 12 to 15 ft. Lee continued enhancing
the tool. In 1931 he proposed a new tool that allowed drilling two sets of lateral holes
one above the other. A patent was awarded in 1931 for this invention. In 1941, Leo
Ranney described a method for drilling horizontal holes, but the tool had to be sunk
in a downhole chamber of sufficient size to accommodate the drilling equipment.
This tool resembles a modern one to drill horizontal holes close to the surface like
those used for river crossing (HDD). Another inventor, John Zublin, was also
interested in drilling horizontal wells. He invented a novel type of rotary bit. First
patent was filed in December 1941 on a tool to drill laterally from the main bore into
the productive zone. It consisted of two types of flexible drill pipe and a fluid operated
turbine motor with a special bit. It was not planned to rotate the pipe. Each section
was lined with high pressure hose which was riveted at the ends of the flexible pipe
to conduct fluid without leakage. A special curved section was manufactured where
a definite radius of curvature was machined, and the material was heat treated to
retain its curved form. The turbine motor and bit assembly were as short as possible.
Drilling mud of high viscosity was used to move the turbine motor which ultimately
rotated the bit. The curved pipe forced the bit to bite into the wall of the original hole
making a hole on it. This was the first system that did not use a whipstock to deflect
the bit. Once the curved section was created, the assembly was pulled out of the
hole and the curved section removed. Drilling was resumed with the bit on the flexible
pipe. Zublin’s second patent covered a simple mechanism for forcing the bit to enter
the mouth of the lateral recently or partially drilled. Drilling was not out of problems.
Drilling fluid was very light mud or water. This equipment was field tried on two wells
in the Midway-Sunset field in California’s San Joaquin Valley oil zones. Three drain
holes were drilled in one well in lengths from 52 to 72 ft. In 1947, the helical slot cut
in the pipe was redesigned to give it more strength. Sometime in 1948 the use of the
turbine was abandoned, and the tools were redesigned once again. Ordinary bits
could be used, motor was eliminated, and the flexible and curved pipe were made
to rotate a tricone bit. Zublin’s drill guide and deflector had received attention to start
lateral holes in hard formations. Eastman developed a set of tools that took ideas
from directional drilling. A universal knuckle joint was used to force the drilling
equipment to increase drift as it drills. At the time, 4 ¾” and 3 ¾” bits were used, and
two different tool sizes were available as well. The system consisted of two separate
assemblies; a whipstock and protective casing assembly and a drilling tool
assembly. The whipstock forces the bit to increase angle at a uniform rate and
ensure that the point of deviation is at the exact depth in the correct direction. This
conceptual design is the same we use today. The drilling section consisted of several
flexible collars, a universal knuckle joint, the bit and other sub-assemblies. Flexible
collars were approximately 16 ft length sections. A special type of 3 lobe clover leaf
cut is made through the collars. The cuts are done to provide the flexibility required
for the task. The width can be adjusted for different radius of bending. Drilling
process was like what we currently do, so I will not describe it here. I want to finalize
this short paragraph with something anecdotical I found during my research, that
CIA was interested in the different technologies related to deviated or lateral drilling.
In 2011 a declassified document from 1957 (CIA-RDP78-03642A002400070001-7),
called a “letter” and secret at the time, presented in some detail a summary of
technologies developed for deviated or lateral drilling. It mentioned that the “letter”
is consequence of a “task” but it is not described which it was. In the document
copies from different public magazines related to the different technologies were
attached. I am not going to make any assumptions why they were interested in…I
will leave it to your imagination.
Records from two wells drilled in Huntington Beach, California, in 1930 are the first
records from directionally controlled boreholes drilled from an onshore location to
oil/gas deposits under the ocean (offshore).
In 1934, a blowout occurred in a field owned by Humble Oil Company of Conroe,
Texas. A gas kick from a high-pressure zone ignited, and the entire rig was engulfed
in flames. After many months and attempts to bring the fire under control, other
nearby rigs had to be closed down and the entire field was threatened. H. John
Eastman, with his experience using whipstocks and surveying instruments, used a
mobile drilling truck to drill a directional relief well close enough to the blowout well,
killing the blowout on the first attempt what we would consider today the world’s first
relief well. Eastman gained notoriety and respect for directional drilling techniques.
The oil industry subsequently accepted directional drilling as a reliable technique.
In July 1955, J. S. McCune and W. E. Hanks filled for a patent (US Pat 27,955,752A)
for a flexible drill collar which was granted in March 1952. The patent took ideas from
two previous patents granted to B. Granville (US pat 1,739,756) granted in
December 1929 for a flexible shaft and to J. A. Zublin (US Pat 2,515,366) in July
1950 for a heavy duty flexible drill pipe.
The first downhole drilling motors or mud motors were designed and manufactured
by Dyna-Drill in 1958. The motor was based on the 1930 Moineau design for
progressive cavity pumps.
Mud motors were first used for directional control of boreholes in the 1960s. A bent
sub (a short component for connecting two longer collars) was positioned directly on
top of the mud motor. Positive displacement motors (PDM) are used to build
inclination and frequently to drill the horizontal section of medium and long-radius
horizontal wells using drilling mud as the power source. In the early 1990s, a positive
displacement motor designed specifically for air drilling has been developed to
operate without requiring lubrication. Experience shows that the motor is reliable,
and it will become more effective through design improvement and experience. This
technology led to the first air-drilled horizontal well with a PDM in 1986 (well Ret#1).
In July 1966, R. H. Cullen et al. filled for a patent (US Pat 3,446,297A) for a flexible
drill collar which was granted in May 1969.
Flexible drill collar patent extract depicting the idea and BHA design.

Evolution of directional drilling.

It’s likely that basic stabilized rotary bottom hole assembly (BHA) designs with drill
collars for weight and stiffness, together with stabilizers precisely positioned for
inclination control while drilling, originated in the 1940s.
The modern history of short radius drilling began by the end of the 1970s. The
introduction of improved articulated-collar systems allowed turning from vertical to
horizontal plane in a small space but there were limitations mainly inherent to the
design itself. The system was difficult to operate and somewhat inefficient. The
articulated collars were difficult to handle, and plastic and rubber were quickly eroded
by pressure, temperature and mechanical interactions. It was not possible to correct
azimuth once the well was deflected from the whipstock and well direction could only
be controlled within 20º of the proposed azimuth. Surveying was time consuming
and it was difficult to apply weight on bit. Penetration rate was low. Horizontal
displacement has a practical limit of about 600 ft. Despite the limitations, the system
has been used to drill multiple horizontal wells. In 1988, five horizontal wells were
drilled with this technology in the Antrim shale formation in Michigan.
Mahlon Dennis, invented the PDC cutters that were used to build the world’s first
PDC bit at Exxon in 1974. The bit was run on the King Ranch. It had started drilling
three times as fast as a roller bit. It was called a drag bit because it has no moving
parts. But there was a problem with it. The cutters, that were braced on the bit,
tended to fall off occasionally. When the problem with the cutters was fixed a new
company was created to commercialize PDC bits called Stratabit, the world’s first
PDC bit company.
In 1976 engineers from MERC patented an early directional drilling technique.
The other innovation that really made ERD wells practical to drill was the Rotary
Steerable System. The early VertiTrak and AccuTrak tools of Baker Hughes evolved
into a means to achieve pinpoint control of the wellbore placement in the desired
location. In the 2000's, this combined technology is what made it possible and
practical to drill some of the world's most famous ERD wells at Wytch farm and
Sakhalin Island, controlling the wellbore over thousands of feet horizontally, while
maintaining the TVD in a +/- 3 feet window in the reservoir's sweet spot. At the start
of this Wytch Farm operation there were no rotary steerable tools available at the
time, but it brought to the development of systems like the Camco's RST (which was
later taken over by Schlumberger). The first 10km step-out well was drilled entirely
with "conventional" bent housing motors and a variable gauge stabilizer which
worked well for inclination adjustments but with no control for azimuth.
Robert Zilles pioneered many of the RSS drilling procedures for Baker Hughes Inteq
and is considered the Grandfather of RSS technology.
In 1993, Baker Hughes Inteq in partnership with Agip S.p.A. developed the Rotary
Closed Loop System (RCLS).
Components of the RCLS system.

Control capabilities of the tool.

Timeline of the evolution of automated drilling systems as reported by Schlumberger.
In 1997 AutoTrak Curve Rotary steerable system was introduced in the market. It
can build high angles quickly. It eliminates the need of orienting or sliding for steering
and minimizes the number of trips to change bottom hole assembly for different
directional profiles.

9 ½” Autotrak G3 RCLS

Horizontal wells
Primitive horizontal drilling technology appeared in the field in the late 1920s. In
1929, the first truly horizontal wells were drilled at Texon, Texas. In 1944 in the
Franklin Heavy Oil field, Venango County, Pennsylvania a horizontal well was drilled
at a depth of 500 ft. Many horizontal wells were drilled in China as early as 1957 and
the USSR during the 1950's and 1960's, with limited success.
This was to change at the end of the 1970s: at that time Elf (now part of the Total
Group) was faced with the challenge of developing Rospo Mare, offshore Italy, which
was a heavy oil field in karstic formations, with very active aquifer. Building up on the
previous Russian experience, Elf launched an R&D program with the support of IFP,
so-called FORHOR ("Forage Horizontal", or Horizontal Drilling in French). This led
to two pilot horizontal wells in 1980 on the Lacq field (South West of France), Lacq
90 and Lacq 91, to demonstrate drilling and completion feasibility; and then to the
first-ever offshore development by horizontal wells in Rospo Mare in 1981-1983.
In 1973, the first horizontal well in the Appalachian Basin was drilled by the
Pittsburgh Bureau of Mines in Greene County, Pennsylvania, near the town of
Jollytown, Pennsylvania. The 414 ft horizontal well was drilled for CBM
degasification ahead of active mining operations.
In 1978, at Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada, the first horizontal well was drilled.
ARCO (American Richfield Co.) Oil and Gas drilled two horizontal wells in the Empire
Abo unit located in the Empire Abo Pool of Eddy County, New Mexico. Reservoir
rock was a dolomite known as the Permian (Lowe Leonard) Abo reef dolomite. Wells
were drilled to evaluate the mechanical feasibility of the drilling process and the
effect producing through the drain holes would have on the well’s tendencies to gas
conning. The first well (K-142) was spudded in July 1979. Once the landing zone
was identified by open hole logs and drill stem tests the bore was cased and
cemented with 7” casing. A whipstock was used to deviate the well from the vertical.
After drilling 106 ft the operations were halted due to increased torque caused by a
corkscrewed hole. This was caused mainly by the system used to drill the lateral
section: the flexible drill collars and a specially designed angle building bottom hole
assembly. Surveys were taken with an Eastman Whipstock type A single shot.
During the completion process, the well was swabbed for several days resulting in
little recovery. A CT run was used to inject N2 in an attempt to clean the well out.
The well flowed intermittently, after a few days it was flowing oil at very low flowing
pressure to the test tank. A pump jack was installed by mid-October 1979 and the
well was put on pumping without experiencing major gas conning. The well was
never acidized as traditionally done in other previous wells to get production. Based
on the results on the K-142, a second well (Empire Abo Unit J-213) was spudded in
March 1980. Once the vertical section was drilled, based on open hole logs and drill
stem tests, the landing zone was selected. The whipstock was set an oriented. After
turning from the vertical to the horizontal, the well started climbing in angle but
attempts to drop the angle were unsuccessful. After drilling 126 ft of drain hole, the
drilling operations were suspended. The problem was identified as caused by the
angle building bottom hole assembly that was drilling for a long time. This happened
by the late May 1980.
The first horizontal hole longer than 1,000 ft was drilled as part of an ARCO project
in 1984-85.
In Austin chalk (Pearsall field near San Antonio in Frio County, TX), the first permit
for a horizontal well was granted to Exxon in 1984 close to Giddings.
The first modern horizontal holes were drilled in France by Elf Aquitaine as part of a
research and development program with the Institut Francais du Pétrole: two in Lacq
and one in Castéra-Lou as reported by Giger in 1984. A fourth well was drilled was
drilled at Rospo Mare where Elf is operator for an association which includes Agip.
These were land wells. The objective of the first two wells was to understand and
develop the technology that was required for effective production of Rospo Mare
reservoir, offshore Italy in the Adriatic Sea. The wells drilled at Lacq Supérieur were
at a relative shallow depth of around 2,000 ft. First well was Lacq-90 drilled in 1979,
and its horizontal section was 360 ft long and completed with an uncemented slotted
liner. The second well was Lacq-91 and had a horizontal section of 1,120 ft long.
Various completion techniques were tried in this well to isolate part of the well and
to reduce water influx. The third well was Castéra-Lou-110 and was used to
demonstrate the feasibility of drilling at a depth of 9,000 ft and to experiment with
different completion techniques. This well had 490 ft of horizontal section. This well
produced more than eight times compared to vertical wells thus proving the viability
of the concept.
Rospo Mare (RSM-6), the next horizontal well, was drilled in the main target of the
research wells. Reservoir rock was a carbonate with very low porosity and
permeability containing heavy oil. A 9 5/8” pilot was drilled first and an 8 ½” horizontal
section was 2,000 ft long. The well produced more than twenty times that of the other
existing wells in the same field.
The next major development in horizontal drilling was led by Maersk Oil & Gas in
Dan field. These wells presented multiple challenges not only in the drilling phase
but also in the completion phase. Specialized tools, fracturing materials and
techniques were developed. Issues were addressed and resolved through
collaborative efforts between Maersk, Halliburton and Baker Oil Tools.
First medium radius horizontal well was drilled in the Austin Chalk in May 1985 by
ARCO. The John G. Hubbard nº 1 in Rockwall, TX was a 1,500 ft lateral well with
20º/100 ft build rate.
In 1986, DOE, BDM Corporation and Eneger Corporation drilled a 2,000 ft horizontal
well in Devonian shale in Wayne County, West Virginia. Total horizontal
displacement was 3,186 ft from vertical. The well Ret-1 was drilled in the
Cabwaylingo State Forest becoming the first and longest air-drilled horizontal well in
the Appalachian basin. 660 ft of 16” casing followed by 2,024 ft of 11 ¾” casing was
landed in the well. External casing packers were used to isolate different intervals
for ulterior stimulation.
Atlantic Richfield Indonesia Inc. (ARCO) initiated a horizontal well drilling program in
1986 to develop the Bima field in the Java Sea. First well (ZUD-3) was drilled in
January 1986 using a conventional drilling system. Although originally designed to
be drilled with conventional rotary drilling, after drilling 13 wells by August 1986, it
was sooner realized that due to changes into the pay zone dip and other
complexities, it would be necessary a navigation system. It was decided to change
the drilling system. An orientable tool was required. In addition, pipe conveyed
logging technology was chosen for open hole logs. The system selected consisted
of a bit, a positive displacement mud motor, a specially designed double tilted U-joint
(DTU) and a MWD system. MWD also provided resistivity and gamma ray. This tool
was called RGD standing for Resistivity-Gamma-Directional tool. The use of it
became quickly and standard procedure to overcome the unpredictable behavior of
the formation and to respond to changing lithology. After logging experience was
gained, it was discovered that logs from MWD were enough and no other logs were
necessary. The elimination of the conventional log suite and conveyance method
provided substantial cost saving in terms of money and time and reduced risks. The
assembly could be oriented in a similar way as a standard mud motor / bent sub
combination to drill and arc or it could be rotated with the drill string to drill a straight
hole segment. Horizontal sections as long as 2,351 ft were drilled during the first
phase of the project that last from 1986 to 1987 where sixteen horizontal and high
angle wells were drilled. Wells were designed using conventional long radius
method. The adopted system provided substantial advantages and benefits. Wells
were mostly completed with 7” uncemented pre-drilled liners and an acid stimulation
(15 % ClH) on CT was the preferred completion methodology.
While long radius drilling was being developed and refined in the Far East, medium
radius horizontal drilling was being applied for the first time in North America in the
Austin Chalk play in Central Texas. The Williston Basin has had the largest
concentration of horizontal wells by 1990. Meridian and other operators in 1987
drilled medium radius horizontal wells in this area to develop the Bakken shale and
Red River formations. Wells were drilled in 8 ¾” and horizontal length averaged
2,500 ft and often exceeded 3,000 ft. MWD systems were typically incorporated into
BHAs for both angle build and horizontal section to guide the assembly to such thin
target zones.
In the Giddings field in the Austin Chalk, wells were drilled in 1987 – 1988 were
drilled with the first medium radius wells which had non-rotating fixed angle build
motors which had two or three bends, oriented in the same plane and were stabilized
at the top and the bottom. Build rates of approximately 20º/100 ft were common
following a curve with a 286 ft radius. Drilling proceeded at constant build angle.
Tangent and horizontal sections were drilled with a steerable motor system
incorporating a DTU of the same basic design as those used in long radius. PDC
were used as bits. Typical TVD was about 8,500 ft. Operator at the time concluded
that horizontal drilling is viable only when a team of experienced professionals from
both sides, company and service contractors, are involved in planning and
execution. Anything new? We always reached the same conclusions no matter what
year it is. In late 1989, horizontal drilling activity moved to the Pearsall field in South
Texas. Wells were designed to achieve about 1,800 ft of horizontal displacement at
an inclination angle of about 86º at TVD of 7,000 ft where some wells were drilled at
shallow TVDs. No tangent sections were used at the time. Most Pearsall wells were
drilled underbalanced. MWD systems were used on both fields for steering and
surveying.
Rick Stone, then with Oryx, is credited with beginning the horizontal drilling trend in
the Chalk with the idea of drilling perpendicular to the natural fractures. This began
a large drilling boom in the 80's and 90's. There were no majors there or even large
independents. It was companies like Oryx, Chesepeake, Clayton Williams, etc.
doing the drilling. This is also when Rick Stone founded Signa Engineering. Many
wells were re-entered and kicked off with whipstocks, and when retrievable
whipstocks were utilized to allow multi-laterals to be completed.
In 1989 and 1990, a DOE-industry partnership drilled three horizontal wells that
identified the technical barriers to widespread application of underbalanced drilling
in the US.
During early 1989 Maersk Oil & Gas drilled the first horizontal well (TEB-1) in the
Tyra field, offshore Denmark. The Tyra reservoir is a gas bearing chalk that has
extensive sub-vertical hairline fractures. Well was spud on December 19th, 1988
aboard the jack-up Glomar Moray Firth and took 70 days until the liner setting
operations. The previous sections of the well, prior the pilot section, were drilled
without major difficulties. The 8 ½” pilot-hole interval was logged down and up with
a drill pipe-conveyed logging string. No difficulties were encountered even with the
use of the wet connector and logs quality were acceptable. RFT, OB image logs and
CBL/VDL were also run on the same conveyance method. Drilling of the 8 ½”
horizontal section was completed at 13,660 ft MD leaving 3,276 ft of horizontal
section and a departure from the vertical of 10,515 ft. The horizontal section was
also open-hole logged with a drill pipe-conveyed logging string including standard
logs and RFTs. No problems were detected during these operations. The bore was
cased with 6 5/8” liner with a rotatable liner hanger. The liner was cemented in place
with full returns and rotation throughout the operation. The quality of the cement was
evaluated with different tools including segment bond tools showing fair to good
cement along the interval. Well was perforated and acidized during completion.
In February 1989, a five-well program of 6” horizontal reentries began in Piedras
Coloradas, Mendoza, Argentina as three previous vertical wells proved fruitless. A
fully retrievable MWD system, a double bend fully adjustable mud motor and a
special PDC for long life and high build appliactions were used. All five wells were
drilled in record time averaging a horizontal extension of about 985 ft and build rates
of 12-14º/100 ft. Vertical depth ranged from 6,560 to 8,200 ft.
In 1989, Amoco initiated a project to develop a short radius lateral drilling system
with the objectives of developing a system that was easy to operate, low cost, easy
to repair, able to drill a predictable and consistent radius of curvature in a desired
direction, capable of being operated using a power swivel and able to work in small
casing diameters (4 ½”). Following development of prototypes, more than 200 wells
were drilled at Amoco’s Catoosa test facility near Tulsa, OK. After initial testing,
several wells were drilled at Amoco’s Levelland Unit. The system was known as the
“Rotary Steerable System” and was introduced commercially. Since 1995 hundreds
of wells have been drilled. The system was purely mechanical. There were no mud
motors or expensive electronics downhole. Bit rotation is derived from the power
swivel with continuous pipe rotation throughout the curve and lateral drilling process.
Radius of curvature generally ranged from 30 to 100 ft.
In the late 1980s, in the Continental Deep Drilling (KTB) project in southern
Germany, the first system to control deviation while drilling was tested. Initial
development work started in 1979. It was designed for vertical drilling by Schwing
Hydraulik Elektronik and Deutsche Montan Technologie (DMT) as a joint venture.
The system measured the inclination continuously during drilling process and
corrected minor deviations from plumb by immediate counter steering. A similar
system for mining, tunneling and civil engineering had been in use worldwide since
1984 but for depths up to 600 m. Based on this initial development, the automatic
drilling system for vertical deep-drilling to a depth of 4,000 m was commenced in
1988. The project concluded in June 1990 with the completion of a prototype called
ZBE 5000.
Dome Petroleum drilled a short radius well in Drumheller in 1987 with "wigglies" - an
interesting project, presented at the CADE/CAODC Spring Drilling Conference in
April 1989, and subsequently in OGJ. One of the two Directional Drillers, Scott, is
the son of John Zublin, who did much of the early work (in the USA) on horizontal
drilling, along with H.John Eastman, in the 1950s and 1960s.
During winter 1987 several wells were re-entried in the Neuquén and Mendoza basin
(Argentina). At the same time and with the same equipment several wells were re-
entried in US. The drilling assembly consisted of a diamond bit, high speed motor
with a bent housing, mule-shoe orienting sub with a built-in float valve, non-magnetic
survey collars and slick drill pipe. All wells were cased with slotted liners.
In 1987, when the oil industry recession hit its low, Maersk (partnership with Moller,
Total and Texaco) began experimenting in its Dan field in the Danish sector of the
North Sea. The reservoir was a low permeability chalk that produced oil. Production
had begun in 1972. Production from deviated and hydraulically fractured wells
declined rapidly. Following the lead of Shell researchers in The Hague, The
Netherlands and of F. M. Giger at the Institut Francais du Petrole, reservoir
engineers compared expected PI from horizontal boreholes with conventional
designs which provided the initial insight to test horizontal wells as a potential
solution to increase oil production. In 1978, however, few horizontal wells had been
drilled anywhere, and none had been fractured. Cementing and perforating
conventional liner in a horizontal well, necessary to isolate zones for hydraulic
fracturing, was regarded as too difficult at the time. By 1986, Maersk considered that
cementing a liner was something technically feasible and it decided to attempt the
industry’s first horizontal, hydraulically fractured well. Initial commitment was to drill
and evaluate three horizontal wells. The first well, MFB-14, was planned to tap a
horizontal drain of 1,000 ft in the most permeable of the Dan field formation (upper
Maastrichtian chalk). The intended stimulation was acid fracturing. It was a long
radius well, so conventional tools could fit down the hole. Trajectory was planned to
minimize torque and drag. The well was drilled using a steerable motor. It performed
flawlessly except in the lower chalk that overlies the Maastrichtian where chert
stringers deviated the bit causing a high angle. Well was plugged back and the well
was drilled with a super stiff BHA to keep the hole on track. Well was cemented using
Dowell Schlumberger’s latex based cementing formulations. Hole was 8 ½” and
cased with 5 ½” liner, with multiple centralizers to ensure proper centralization. The
liner was also rotated while cementing. Cement bond tools showed adequate cement
along the interval. Tough Logging Condition (TLC) tool showed that the well was out
of the formation after been drilled about 330 ft. The well trajectory was at the right
position, but formation was dipping causing a deviation out of the zone of interest.
Despite the problems encountered while drilling, the well produced triple the rate of
the best conventional well. Production declined steeply during the first three months.
Production logs on CT showed that most of the production was coming from the two
fractures in the more productive zone. Except for the problem of chert stringers,
drilling had been relatively uneventful. The next well, MFB-15, went out 2,500 ft. A
7” liner was run and cemented in place without problems in 1988. Drilling proceeded
on schedule using a pilot well to adjust landing zone. The last well of the series was
MFB-13, which was drilled without a pilot well. Drilling of the 2,600 ft lateral drain
proceeded without incidents. Well was put on production in June 1988.
Shell in UK set a record at the time with the Cormorant A-13 well with a departure of
4.7 km in 1988. Shell’s Tern A-5 well achieved a departure of 5 km while Galleon
well PN-02 achieved a departure of 5.7 km.
In 1989 began the development of horizontal drilling in Entre Lomas, Tapera
Avendaño, Medanito, Puesto Hernández and Chihuido de la Sierra Negra fields in
Neuquén basin (Neuquén province) and Piedras Coloradas field in Cuyana Basin
(Mendoza province), all in Argentina. In all cases well were designed for medium-
radius trajectories (build angles of 8 – 12º/100 ft. Horizontal sections ranged from
984 ft to 1,968 ft. Horizontal sections were cased with 5 ½” casing or tapered strings
combining 7” and 5 ½” casing.
In Norway in 1989/1990, Statoil and Norsk Hydro drilled C-10 well which achieved 5
km departure. The first 6 km (6.1 km) departure well in the industry was achieved by
Stafjord well C3 in 1991.
Before 1990, horizontal drilling was not a popular technique. The oil industry only
drilled horizontal wells in difficult situations as a last resort. The global total for 1989
was just over 200 horizontal wells. In 1990, that total leapt to almost 1,200 wells,
with nearly 1,000 of these drilled in the US.

Number of horizontal wells drilled on a yearly basis.

Ultra-short-radius drilling systems’ milestones

Oryx Energy Co., Dallas, held the displacement record for medium radius wells in
the 1990 survey with 4,164 ft at 2 Stroman-Harris in Pearsall field, Texas. Oryx
earlier in March 1990 broke that record at 1 Haley, in Zavala County, Tex., where
displacement was 4,242 ft. The first well they drilled was a complete mechanical
failure, the second got out about 200 ft and next got out even more.
The success of Mobil Erdgas-Erdöl GmbH's (MEEG) first horizontal well, the
Siedenburg Z17 in 1990, promoted the widespread use of short, ultra-short, and
medium-radius drilling technologies in North Germany by the time. Initial production
was a six-fold increase compared to a vertical offset. Since then, MEEG drilled more
than 20 horizontal wells in North Germany. True vertical depths (TVDs) for these
wells range from 270 to 4,940 m, with build rates of 92°/30 m for ultra-short radius
to 3-5°/30 m for long-radius wells. In total, MEEG drilled 10 short-radius and ultra-
short radius wells in North Germany from 1990 to 1996. The 7-in. liner, set through
the boundary of the Tertiary clay/Cretaceous pay zone proved to be a critical well-
design issue concerning proper zonal isolation. The liner was rotated during
cementation. In addition, an inflatable external casing-packer was run near the
casing shoe to provide a contingency for any problems encountered during the
cement job. The wells were drilled with a common small oil field rig, ITAG's National
108. The only additional equipment needed was a hydraulic top-drive, necessary for
drilling the horizontal sections. The short-radius BHAs was the one developed by
Baker Hughes Inteq. A near-bit inclination sensor located 1.6 m behind the bit made
the steering process much easier. Modifications of the short-radius BHA allowed a
change from fully oriented "snake" drilling (sliding) to rotary drilling with a slow
rotational speed of 10-12 rpm. This method, combined with the use of the near-bit
inclination sensor provided excellent steerability and led to a straight, smooth well
path in the horizontal section. It was possible to increase the horizontal section
length beyond 600 m.
Platform Irene well #A-21 was completed in July 1991 in the Pt. Pedernales Field,
offshore California operated by Unocal with Amoco Corp., Chevron Corp., Elf
Aquitane, Exxon Corp. and Mobil Corp. as partners. The well broke two records at
the time, the longest horizontal displacement at 14,671 ft and the longest pay zone
section at 5,990 ft. The fact that this displacement was achieved at a true vertical
depth (TVD) of only 5,033′ makes the accomplishment of this feat even more
significant. The wells were not truly horizontal - they followed the Monterey shale
which was the producing formation. A-21 reached 71.1º deviation. They were at the
extreme of extended reach for the time, however. Some of the work was presented
by John Hood in a 1992 technical paper.
In November 1991, Maersk O&G completed the world’s longest horizontal well at the
time at Tyra West Bravo field, TWB-11a in the Danish sector of the North Sea. The
horizontal extension record was 2,500 m.
Cliff O&G drilled the deepest horizontal well at the time in the North Bayou Jack field
in Louisiana in September 1991. The well reach TD at a TVD of 4,675 m.
Unocal drilled the well C-29, drilled from platform C in the Dos Cuadras field offshore
Santa Barbara channel in California in 1991 with the greatest DDI of 3.95 at the time.
In July 1991 from the Irene platform offshore California, the well A-21 was drilled to
a total lateral reach of 4,472 m and had the longest pay zone section of 1,826 m.
Woodside in 1991, drilled a long ERD gas well from North Rankin A platform in
Australia. The well reached 5009 m and a MD of 6,180 m.
Following a failed ERD attempt in 1991 (Arbroath T-14 well), Amoco UK drilled well
T-19 achieving a departure of 4.6 km in 1992. That achievement was extended with
the SEER-T-12 which achieved a departure of 6.4 km in 1993.
Designer wells are another well geometry. These wells were drilled in geological
complex Gullfaks field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. The field has
complex reservoir, which many normal and reverse faults. Typically, the designer
well path involves a strong change in the horizontal plane (30 to 150º degrees
azimuth) at high deviation combined with turns to both sides (right and left) with turns
not restricted by inclinations and the ability to be placed as dictated by geology. The
second well, Spirit Energy 76 Sweet Lake, had a complex trajectory starting a section
at 33º and then dropping 2.5º/100 ft while turning 182º and building back to 55º
inclination at 3º/100 ft.

Examples of a Designer well drilled in Gullfaks field.

In 1992, well A-36 reached 5 km departure in the Gullfaks field resulting in a June
1992 ratio of 2.79 which was among the highest at that time.
In 1993, BP began the ERD campaign in Wytch Farm. M-2 well was drilled to a
departure of 6760 m in late 1994 and M-3 well to 6818 m in early 1995. The first
ERD well (M-5) was drilled in Wytch Farm with a length of 8,715 mMD using RSS
from Camco Ltd. The second well (M-11) set a record mark of 10,658 mMD.
Well design of the first ERD drilled by BP in Wytch Farm, UK.
In 1992/1993, Statoil’s 33/9-C-2 well set a record and broke the 7 km (7.29 km)
departure barrier for the first time in the industry. Prior to this record the first three
ERD wells (33/9-C-10, 33/9-C-3 and 33/9-C-24) had horizontal reachs of 5006 m,
6086 m and 5679 m. Prior to this well, well 34/10-B-14 was the first well drilled with
a displacement greater than planned. The well 34/10-B-14A was died-tracked from
34/10-B-14. The well was completed in March 1991 with a MD/TVD ratio of 2.08.
Foinaven was the first field to be developed in the deep water, West of Shetland.
The discovery well 204/24A-2 was drilled in the autumn of 1992. Most of the
development wells had extended reach horizontal or high angle sections. Horizontal
lengths reached about 3,280 ft. Wells were drilled using a steerable system which
included a MWD system tied into the gyro survey. First production occurred in
November 26th, 1997. Wells were completed with open hole completions including
sand screens and external casing packers (ECP) to isolate the various sand bodies.
In 1994 Maersk Qatar set several world records with its wells Al Shaheen 2 and 3.
The wells involved horizontal sections of 3.1 km and 3.9 km for total departures
around 3.8 to 4.6 km. DDI were 3.2 to 4.3.
In 1994, Norsk Hydro’s C-26 well extended this achievement further and set a new
record for well departure reaching 7.85 km.
In 1995, Total Austral Argentina, Deminex (currently Wintershall-Dea), and Pan
American Energy drilled their first extended-reach well, the HNP-7, into one of the
satellite fields of Hidra. Located near the Ara, Kaus, and Canadon Alfa fields along
the east coast of Tierra del Fuego, this well achieved a South and North American
extended-reach record by drilling to a measured depth (MD) of 6,982 m with a
horizontal departure (HD) of 6,253 m. Two additional wells were drilled in this area.
Because of the success of these wells in terms of cost and production, a seven-well
onshore campaign was initiated from mid-1997 to late-1998 to develop oil and gas
accumulations in the Ara and Kaus fields. Three of these wells reached at least 8,000
m (MD) while the next to last well, the Cullen Sur No. 1 (CS-1), reached a TD of
8,687 m MD (8,107 m HD) in 83 days. After 3 months of fast-track engineering and
procurement, this well was drilled and completed in 142 days, including a geological
sidetrack. Located at the southern tip of South America in Tierra del Fuego, the
Cullen Norte No. 1 set a world record 10,585 m of horizontal displacement, reaching
a TD of 11,184 m in March 1999. A horizontal pickup-laydown machine allowed Total
and Forasol to overcome space limitations associated with racking back 11 km of
drill pipe in the derrick. This may be the first onshore application of this technology.

Well profiles for different ERD wells drilled by the consortium.

The pilot-project Soehlingen Z10, drilled in 1994, was designed to produce gas from
the Rotliegendes formation's Main sandstone. The goal was to combine two existing
technologies: horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. By drilling a 1,000 m
horizontal section at 4,780 m TVD and casing it off with a cemented 7-in. liner, the
gas should be produced through four hydraulic fracs perpendicular to the well bore
axis. Build rates in the Rotliegendes formation were designed at 4.5°/100 ft, which
later proved to be an acceptable value for directional work in these formations.
Directional assemblies consisted of Navidrill Mach 1C positive displacement motors
with an AKO Bent Housing set at 1.2-1.5° for the build section and 0.9-1.2° for the
hold sections. For proper frac isolation in the horizontal section, perfect cementation
of the 7-in. liner was essential. Oil-based mud (OBM) was used to lower the risk of
differential sticking. The Soehlingen Z10 well broke several world records, including
deepest horizontal well, deepest cemented liner, and deepest sidetrack at the time.
In the horizontal section, the plug-back and sidetrack operations were carried out
successfully. Production began in early 1995. All four fracs produced 33% more than
expected. The project was an overall success.
The first horizontal well in Argentina was a re-entry from an existing vertical well into
the Mulichinco formation. The SCh-17 was drilled in the Sierra Chata gas field in the
Chihuidos exploration block located in the Neuquén basin by Petrolera Santa Fé (a
Devon Energy Corp subsidiary). On May 10th, 1999, the window was cut at 1,600 m
depth and a medium radius system with a downhole motor and MWD was used to
drill to 2975 m MD on June 15th, 1999, leaving 1,005 m of lateral drain exposed into
the formation. The well was cased with a 5” pre-perforated liner which became stuck
at 2310 m where it was left. Well was perforated on TCP and put on production in
July 1999.
In May of 2008, Maersk Oil Qatar completed drilling its BD-04A - a horizontal well
with a staggering length of 35,770 ft MDRT. It was reported that this well sets records
for both the longest well, at 40,320 ft measured depth from the rotary table (MDRT)
and the longest along hole departure of 37,956 ft MDRT.
In 2017, Rosneft, as a member of Sakhalin-1 Consortium, successfully completed
drilling of the world's longest well (O-14) from Orlan platform at Chaivo field in the
Sea of Okhotsk using an extended reach technology known as “Fast Drill”,
developed by US major ExxonMobil, who is a Consortium’s partner. The length of
the well with horizontal completion is 15,000 m. This well has a DDI (Directional
drilling index) of 8.0 and 14,129-m step-out.

Image from Merlin ERD Ltd web site. Accessed Oct 23th, 2018.
Cuadrilla finished drilling the UK’s first horizontal shale gas well in April 2018 at
Preston New Road, near Blackpool. The well was drilled at a depth of approximately
2,300m below ground and extended for about 800m. Well was spud on 11 January
2018. Cuadrilla reported by the end of Nov, 2018, that the well was making the first
shale gas at very low rates.

Barnett Shale
C. W. Slay No. 1 vertical well near Newark in Wise County, TX was drilled and
completed in 1981. Originally the well was drilled to the Viola Limestone to a depth
of 7,856 ft and due to bit problems the well did not reach TD at 7,950 ft. The target
formation proved unproductive after acidizing and the well was plugged back. The
well was then perforated in the lower Barnett and after acidizing it showed a slight
show of gas. Mud logging also indicated the presence of gas. Log looked
encouraging when compared to the Devonian shale in the Appalachian basin. A
stimulation job with nitrogen was performed creating a short fracture network. The
well was put on production in 1982 with an initial potential of 246 Mscfgd. Production
rate after cleanup was 120 Mscfgd in June 1982. In 1983, the well was reperforated
and refractured with carbon dioxide foam. Production jumped to 274 Mscfgd but
completion costs were prohibitive.
Subsequent wells were stimulated with bigger nitrogen assisted gelled frac jobs.
Initial potentials were reported in the range of 730 – 1,100 Mscfgd. Larger stimulation
designs did not always result in consistent results. Still completion costs were high
for big jobs. After multiple failed attempts, Mitchell Energy engineer’s Nick
Steinsberger, finally successfully used a slick water frack on his fifth well, the S.H.
Griffin nº 4, located near Ponder, Texas on June 11, 1998. He used twenty tanks of
water and twelve powerful pumps to open the bedrock pores. Two tanks supplied
the chemical additives: a friction reducing gel to make water more slippery and a
bactericidal substance to kill micro-organisms that could have got into the waste
liquid. No less than one million gallons (3.78 million liters) of water were pumped.
After one-hour, fine sand was pumped. The water column had 2,500 meters, making
an enormous pressure on the bottom of the well on the Barnett shale. The results
were astonishing: while normal wells were producing 1-2 million cubic meters of gas
during the first 90 days of production, the S.H. Griffin #4, massively fractured with
water, produced in the same interval 3.3 million cubic meters.
First horizontal well drilled and completed in Barnett shale was an isolated joint
project with GRI in late 1991 (Thomas P. Sim “B” 1H) with poorer production than
vertical wells. It was completed as a cased and cemented well with external casing
packers. Acidizing and ulterior frac stimulation were not successful. The next attempt
was in 1998. A horizontal well of 1,700 ft of lateral drain and a MD of 8,628 ft was
drilled in 1998 (L. B. Wilson GU nº 1) perpendicular to the induced frac direction and
it was planned to have three frac stages from a re-entry of the Petty A-1 vertical well
which was cased with 7” casing. The well was cased with 4 ½ in casing and was
cemented. Originally it was designed as an uncemented completion but shale
plugging issues in the T. P. Sims B-1 changed the decision. The well experienced
high treatment pressure and it was considered that only the perfs close to the toe
were effectively stimulated. It performed better than the first horizontal and in
addition decline seemed to be much lower than in vertical wells. While this
completion was not a complete success it was recognized as an excellent beginning.
Based on the previous results another well (L. B. Wilson GU nº 2) with 2,700 ft of
lateral drain parallel to the induced frac orientation was drilled as a new well in 1998.
A single LSF stage was pumped but production results were unacceptable. An
attempt to drill a third horizontal well with a flexible string was not successful and no
more horizontal wells were drilled by Mitchell Energy until Devon purchased the
company. The merger took place on January 28 th, 2002. Devon agreed to pay
Mitchell’s assets for 3.1 billion in cash and stocks and to assume 400 million in
Mitchell’s debt. Six to ten wells were required to prove production results were
encouraging.

White dots depict vertical wells and blue dots represent horizontal wells in the
Barnett shale. In 1992 the first well was drilled and completed. LaFollette, 2010.
In 2002 Mitchell Energy was bought by Devon Energy, a company based in
Oklahoma City. The engineers working with Devon (Steinsberger among them) have
come up with another revolutionary idea: the horizontal drilling. Until then all drillings
were done vertically. In June and July 2002 Devon drilled its first horizontal well
(Veale Ranch nº 1H) into the Barnett shale. The well was then fractured using 4,500
cubic meters of water. In October the same year Devon performed a second
horizontal drilling, Graham Shoop nº 6. After 2002 horizontal drilling has become
standard procedure for wells exploiting shale gas by hydraulic fracturing.
The first horizontal well drilled by Devon was the Veale Ranch nº 1, W. Robinson
survey, A-1274 in southwest Tarrant County. This was followed by two more: C. J.
Harrison A-2, D. Love survey, A-518 and the O. H. McAlister nº 16, Branlett & Ryan
survey, A-123 both in the Wise County. All proposed wells were spudded in 2002
and by April 2003 all were on production. Initial production data was under
substantial security measures by Devon but eventually they came up to the public
domain. Production results were outstanding when compared with previous wells.

In 2007 multi-well pads in the Barnett shale.

In subsequent years multiple companies were drilling and completing wells in
different shales. First companies to jump in were mostly independent producers but
later on, majors joined the pack. For example, in 2008 XTO (Exxon subsidiary) drilled
its first four horizontal wells in the Haynesville shale portion located in Texas. The
wells were put on production in 2009. Wells were drilled with OBM and cased and
cemented. 10 to 15 frac stages per well using plug and perf methodology. Hybrid
frac fluid design.

Multilaterals
The first multilateral technology patent was filed in 1929 by Leo Ranney and was
followed by additional patents and rudimentary attempts to drill multilateral wells in
the 1930s. Some sources credit Leo Ranney with being the first to try horizontals
and multilaterals in the United States. Ranney, a Canadian, was a consulting
engineer in Texas and Oklahoma. In 1925, he developed the Ranney method of
using horizontal wells to extract oil from exhausted fields. Standard Oil Company of
New Jersey bought out his patent and made him president of Ranney Oil and Mining
Company, a subsidiary of Standard Oil from 1930 to 1938. In 1939, Ranney drilled
an 8 ft (2.44 m) vertical shaft in Ohio, put men and equipment in the bottom of the
hole and drilled a horizontal section. He is also reported to have drilled in a horizontal
radial pattern like the spokes of a wheel, establishing probably the first multilateral
with horizontal sections. After the war, an inventor, John A. Zublin, drilled horizontal
“drainholes” for operators in California. In 1945, Zublin sidetracked a well with eight
drainholes. He eventually re-entered about 250 vertical wells in California, West
Texas, and Wyoming, with an average of two laterals. The first true multilateral well,
66/45, was drilled in 1953 by Alexander M. Grigoryan (1914 – 2005) in the
Ishimbainefti field at Bashkiria, now Bashkortostan, Russia. Grigoryan graduated as
a petroleum engineer from the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute in 1939. Two years
later, he drilled one of the world’s first directional wells, the Baku 1385, using only a
downhole hydraulic mud motor to drill the entire well bore. This is the first time a
turbodrill was used for drilling both vertical and deviated sections of a borehole. The
significant increase in reservoir exposure over vertical wells resulted in a
corresponding significant increase in production and led to many more successful
horizontal wells in the USSR. Grigoryan’s success in drilling innovation led to his
promotion to department head at the All-Union Scientific Research Institute for
Drilling Technology (VNIIBT) in Moscow, where he developed a new sidetrack kick-
off technique and a device for stabilizing and controlling curvature without deflectors.
In 1949, Grigoryan, expanding on the theoretical work of an American scientist, L.
Yuren, proposed branched boreholes to increase production in the same way a tree
root extends its exposure to the soil. He tested his theory in 1953 when he drilled
Well 66/45 using only turbodrills without rotating drill strings, cement bridges, or
whipstocks. The well had nine branches, each extending 262.5 ft to 984 ft (80 m to
300 m). From 1953 to 1980, 110 more multilateral wells were drilled in East Siberia,
West Ukraine and near the Black Sea. Thirty of these wells were drilled by Grigoryan,
who is recognized as the father of multilateral technology. In the 1980s, Grigoryan
moved to Los Angeles, Calif., and opened a company named Grigoryan Branched-
Horizontal Wells. Grigoryan received recognition in 2003 as a Technology Pioneer
by Offshore Energy Center’s Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig and Museum. Thanks
to the pioneering efforts of Grigoryan, Multilaterals began to take off in the United
States in the 1980s. Arco drilled the K-142 dual lateral well in New Mexico in 1980,
and UPRC drilled 1,000 multilaterals in the Austin Chalk from the 1980s to 1998.
In June 1988, Pluspetrol decided to re-enter the R-15 well located in the Ramos field,
in the Northwestern basin in the Salta province in Argentina. The intention was to
drill a multilateral well into the naturally fractured quarzitic sandstones in
Huamampampa, Icla and Santa Rosa formations that produced gas. The re-entry
work drilled 1,148 ft of horizontal section being the first horizontal well in the area. A
dual completion was run and the well put on production. The KOP for the first branch
was at 9,235 ft with a length of 3,284 ft. The KOP for the second branch was at 9,065
ft with a length of 3,120 ft. The well was completed with a MLT level 3. Previously,
in 1997 the well R-1006 was drilled horizontally with an extension of 3,610 ft. As the
results were poor a second lateral from the same pilot was drilled with an extension
of 2,296 ft. During 1998, the R-1008 was horizontally drilled with an extension of
1,968 ft. This well was the first step in drilling a multilateral well from an existing
vertical well. Between 1998 and 1999, the R-1010 was drilled with two sub-horizontal
branches into the Huamampampa formation becoming the first multilateral well in
the area. The first leg was completed with a 7” slotted liner. The liner was not
cemented. The second branch was cased with a 7” slotted liner. The completion was
run without major problems and the well was put on production.
It was in the 1990s when “modern” multilaterals began as systems were built to
create multilateral junctions that went beyond simply sidetracking a well and
provided new capabilities. Modern multilateral systems fall into categories of Level
3 through Level 6, and significant milestones with these systems came in quick
succession:
• 1993 – 1st Level 3 multilateral, Shell, Alberta, Canada.
• 1994 – 1st Level 4 multilateral, Shell, Alberta, Canada.
• 1995 – 1st Level 5 multilateral, BP, Gulf of Mexico, US.
• 1996 – 1st through-tubing multilateral intervention.
• 1997 – Technical Advancement of Multi-Laterals (TAML) formed.
With such growth in the number of multilateral systems, installations and well
complexities, a Shell Expro engineer, Eric Diggins, decided to form an operators
group to share worldwide multilateral experiences, establish an informal network of
contacts, and provide a more unified direction for the development of multilateral
technology. The kick-off meeting was held in the Expro offices in Aberdeen, Scotland
in March 1997. Participants included BP, Norsk Hydro, Statoil, Esso UK, Exxon,
Mobil, Phillips, Maersk, Texaco, Total, Chevron, Shell Oil, Shell International E&P
and Shell UK Expro. One of the new group’s tasks was to create a Classification
System for Multilaterals. The results were published in 1998 and included two tiers,
a complexity ranking and a functionality classification. The higher the ranking, the
higher the complexity. In 2002, some minor changes were made to the complexity
ranking definitions to accommodate new multilateral systems that had entered the
market. While the organization began as an operators’ forum, service companies
were included in a portion of the face-to-face meetings. In 2001, a service company
hosted a TAML meeting for the first time, and membership eventually became open
to operators, service companies, and academia. With input from TAML and the
continued effort of the service companies to provide improved tools, the evolution of
multilateral technology has continued with additional milestones:
• 1998 – multilaterals started evolving toward intelligent wells.
• 1998 – 1st deepwater Level 5 from a floating rig, Petrobras, Brazil.
• 1999 – 1st Level 6, AERA Energy, California.
• 1999 – 1st intelligent multilateral, Level 2, BP, UK.
• 2002 – 1st multilateral system floated in, Level 3, Chevron, China.
• 2002 – 1st intelligent Level 6, CNOOC, Indonesia.
More than 50 years after that first multilateral by Grigoryan, the estimated number of
multilateral junctions installed through the end of 2006 is estimated to be greater
than 8,000. Level 1 and 2 multilaterals have become so common that those numbers
are no longer tracked by the industry, and the actual number of installations could
be as high as 10,000. While all countries in which Level 1 and 2 installations cannot
be determined, there are a minimum of 29 countries on six of the seven continents
covered by the remaining levels. Multilateral technology is neither new nor emerging,
but even with global numbers in the thousands, it is still not considered mature by
the industry. Multilaterals have not yet reached the acceptance level of horizontal
wells, but with the economic incentives the technology offers in terms of reduced
well count and equal or greater number of penetrations into the reservoir, it makes
sense to evaluate projects for possible candidates, especially where horizontals are
already being drilled. The challenges of multi-fracturing of each leg in unconventional
reservoirs has been field tested by several operators, but it did not reach a full
development, because costs and risks were extraordinarily high.
The first comprehensive plan for a multilateral well was prepared by a joint team
comprised of Mobil Germany and Halliburton European Research Centre. The target
was the deep gas field in Soelingen, Germany. These were HPHT wells. The plan
was approved by the European Community under the Joule-Thermie project.
Joule/Thermie initiative was focused on the cost-effective, environmentally-friendly
and targeted demonstration and promotion of clean and efficient energy
technologies. These consist of: renewable energy technologies; rational use of
energy in industry, buildings and transport; and cleaner and more efficient use of
solid fuels and hydrocarbons. Essentially, the program, supported actions which aim
to prove both the technological and economic viability and validity of energy
technologies by highlighting their benefits and by assuring a wider replication and
market penetration both in the EU and globally. The objectives of the project were to
drill and complete a dual lateral well with commingled production, at minimum risk
and cost, and to monitor and report the production performance. The major step
change was the installation of a cemented junction with connectivity, isolation and
re-entry capabilities that was not done before. However, the complex nature of the
field caused the plan to be replaced to drill the multilateral off of a well in Forties field
offshore UK, operated by BP. This multilateral was later executed in 1996 (well FA-
12). The well was deviated from a 9 5/8” main bore and after drilling it was cased
and cemented with a 7” liner. The junction was cemented with a new sealant called
M-seal. The lateral bore reservoir section was drilled and completed with 4 ½” liner.
After some well conditioning, the access tools were tested and both bores
successfully entered. The well was perforated and put on production in 1997.
Norsk Hydro, Halliburton and Weatherford completed successfully the first
multilateral well in Oseberg C-12C in the central North Sea in April 1996. Discussions
about multilaterals well construction were initiated by December 1994 and technical
requirements were defined by late January 1995 and sent out to all potential service
providers. The well had a 9 5/8” main bore located in the slanted part of the well and
the lateral had an 8 ½” bore cased and cemented with a 7” liner. The well was drilled
to 4,734 mMD (1,150 m of lateral drian) but it was cased to 4,662 mMD due to due
the presence of tight spots that caused well pack-off during wiper trips. The junction
needed to satisfy the requirements for connectivity, isolation and access for future
interventions. Halliburton developed a system in record time which was designed
and tested just in time for the running process. The liner was tied back into the main
bore above the junction and cemented. A special cement formulation was developed
in the junction area to increase junction resistance to impacts caused by moving
tools string through it. The lateral bore was drilled using a retrievable solid whipstock
which was removed once the lateral drain was drilled and replaced with a hollow
whipstock. To enter the lateral, a fullbore diverter was designed which included a full
gage diverter, orienting lock key, and a lock mechanism that could be run either on
CT or wireline. Many obstacles were overcome during the planning and execution
phases through team work and full dedication. The success of this project formed
the launching for many new and more innovative multilaterals. Norsk Hydro decided
to drill three additional multilaterals wells in 1996 based on these results.
The dual-lateral Siedenburg Z6 was completed in 1996. It was designed to produce
a largely depleted sour gas field. The first lateral had an ultra-short build section of
98°/30 m and a turning radius of 18 m. The second lateral had a short-build section
of 57°/30 m with a turning radius of 30 m. Because of budget restraints, only 41 m
of the planned 150 m of the ultra-short build section were drilled. The second lateral
used a retrievable whipstock in order to cut a casing window. After drilling the short-
radius curve, 370 m of horizontal section was drilled without severe problems. The
retrievable whipstock could not be recovered, and the entry to the first ultra-short
radius lateral could not be reopened. The acidizing job was done by bullheading the
formation. Despite this drawback, the well was economical. There was a six-fold
increase in production as compared to a vertical well.

Logging and Surveying

Earliest survey systems were used in late 1890 for mining applications based on the
acid bottle principle.
The initial single shots were mechanical drift indicators. A sharp pin when hitting a
paper made a mark on it giving the deviation from the vertical. As the devices were
not originally oriented the deviation was just absolute without knowing to what
geographical orientation.
In 1926, Sun Oil enlisted Sperry Corporation to use gyroscopic-based technology to
make survey instruments for accurately measuring borehole inclination and
direction. Elmer Sperry developed the first gyro system for oilfield applications.
In 1929 John Eastman developed the first magnetic single-shot and multi-shot
instruments, which measured both inclination and direction.
In 1933 this technology was used on well D.W. Hardin nº 8 located in Hobbs, New
Mexico.
Gearhart Industries was an independent oil well service company that was founded
by Marvin Gearhart and Harrold Owen in 1955 and based in Fort Worth, Texas,
United States. Gearhart and Owen had been employees of Welex Jet Services, also
located in Fort Worth. Gearhart had been the Chief Logging Engineer while Owen
was the Chief Explosives Engineer. It was Welex who had developed the explosive
lined shaped charge used for well perforation. As now competitors to Welex, GO
was unable to buy perforating charges and in turn developed their own, with a lawsuit
by Welex being the result. In 1962, the court's ruling went in favor of GO, but only
after the United States Justice Department stepped in and eased the apparent
constraint of trade. Being forced to manufacture their own perforating line was
apparently a positive step for GO, as they grew to be the largest supplier of jet
charges in the world. The Perforating Supply Company (PSC) was formed as a
subsidiary of GO, and made perforating supplies readily available to other
independent wireline companies. Over the next six years, many perforating
companies were started, with GO providing both the technical and financial aid. In
1964, GO bought Electronic Instruments and the company's name was soon
changed to Gearhart-Owen Industries (GOI). By the early 1970s with Harrold Owen
going in the direction of explosive manufacturing, Marvin Gearhart had decided that
he wanted to crack the lucrative open-hole logging market that was dominated by
Schlumberger, Dresser-Atlas, and Welex. A man named Ralph Spinnler with Teleco
started working on the MWD (Measurement While Drilling) systems in 1972. During
the same year, Gearhart began development of a new series of open hole tools and
computer system to analyze the findings. In only 14 months the system was
completed and entered its test phase. The new Direct Digital Logging (DDL) system
surpassed by leaps and bounds the current analog systems employed by its
competition and went into service in 1975 creating large revenues for the company.
During the 1970s Fort Worth had now become a research and development center.
Gearhart researchers were concentrating on a new technology called Measure While
Drilling (MWD). This new product was being developed for market by the same team
that had given life to DDL earlier. MWD was what made controlled directional
horizontal drilling possible. MWD saved time and money over the traditional methods
of wireline logging by eliminating the wireline. After a few years of testing, Gearhart
and its Canadian affiliate, Computalog, were gaining advances over their
competition. MWD had now become a process desired by competing companies. By
1983, as an investment, General Electric had bought 25% of Gearhart's stock with
rumors of a total buyout of the company. Instead GE informed him that its shares in
the company had been sold to Smith International, a competitor to some of
Gearhart's divisions. Smith now made a move to buy just enough stock to gain
control of the company. Gearhart decided to fight that move, at first through
unsuccessful court appeals and later by acquiring the large geophysical company,
Geosource. Geosource's size rivaled Gearhart's and the merger indebted Gearhart
to the point it was no longer attractive to Smith. In 1986, Gearhart had become the
world's third largest wireline logging company. After over 30 years of fulfilling his
dream, Marvin Gearhart's company was up for sale. Late in 1987, its Canadian
partner Computalog had signed a letter of intent with Gearhart providing for the
possible restructuring and whole acquisition of the company. By February of the
following year it was ready and told the Gearhart management of the plan. On
February 24, 1988 it was announced that Gearhart was entering into a buyout
agreement with oilfield service giant Halliburton Company. Within Halliburton it was
merged with Welex Jet Services to become Halliburton Logging Services completing
the circle which began 33 years earlier. Also, Halliburton later in 1993-94' also
acquired the division of Smith International, DataDril, that was to have originally been
combined with Gearhart's MWD division.
In 1977, the first surface recording gyros were introduced where accelerometers
replaced mechanical plumb bobs and resolvers tracked gyro orientation. It was
developed per a request of a major operator in the North Sea who wanted to drill
from a 60-well-slot jacket and had concerns about well separation.
In 1978, the first MWD system was deployed. Magnetometers replaced mechanical
compasses and accelerometers replaced angle units. Data was converted to binary
and sent to surface as pulses for quick interpretation.
Mud-pulse telemetry is currently the most common method of transmitting
measurement-while-drilling (MWD) and logging-while-drilling (LWD) data. Advances
in downhole sensing for drilling optimization and formation evaluation are placing
heavy demands on equipment to provide faster data rates from greater depths. As
a result, mud-pulse telemetry rates have improved to more than 20 bits/sec (bps) at
depths shallower than 20,000 ft, and more than 3 bps from depths of more than
36,000 ft. In 1978, a typical data rate was 0.4 bps. Various telemetry systems are in
use: wired pipe, mud pulse, electromagnetic, and acoustic. Mud-pulse telemetry has
proven to be reliable and cost-effective and is the most common MWD telemetry
system. The earliest telemetry patent was issued in 1929, but current mud-pulse
telemetry systems date from work by J.J. Arps published in 1964. Earliest reference
to actual attempts to log continuously while drilling through telemetry went back to
the 1930s when J. C. Karcher of Geophysical Service Inc. in Dallas insulated the drill
bit from the drill string with a section made of Bakelite of about 4 – 5 ft long and
provided an electrical conduit to the surface by mounting insulated conducting rods
in each section of the drill pipe. Appropriate electrical connectors were used to link
rods. At the top an insulated slip ring with a brush provided the electrical connection
to surface equipment such as an ohmmeter. Continuous resistivity was recorded in
core drilling and reported as successfully at the time. D. G. Hawthorn and J. E. Owen
of Amerada’s Geophysical Research Corp. in Tulsa, in the 1930s, developed an
insulated steel drill collar and a new type of drill pipe which had an electrical cable
permanently brazed inside each pipe joint and a special connector as well. Bakelite
was also used for insulating purposes. To overcome the inherent problems of both
systems, D. Silverman of Stanolind Oil & Gas Co’s Research Dept. in Tulsa designed
a connector that allowed running a cable inside the drill pipe and pulling it back out
again. Several jobs were performed in the Seal Beach field in California. The main
drawback was the need of running and pulling out the cable each time a drill pipe
was added. The numerous challenges of these technologies led to the use of other
methods such as the electromagnetic waves in their different wave types that do not
need a cable to be transmitted. Although waves provided more flexibility, there were
other problems such as signal attenuation that was a severe issue for deep wells or
for certain formations such the Gulf Coast. One attempt, that was patented, was the
transmission of acoustic or seismic signals through either the drill pipe, the earth or
the mud stream. Very high acoustic noise level at surface was the weaknesses of
the method. To enhance the transmission, another patent proposed to install relay
stations along the drill string. In the same period several patents disclosed a method
to carry the information signal in the form of electrolytically released radioactive
tracers, hydrogen or radioactive pellets. These methods were not introduced
commercially at the time but the idea of installing relays or similar devices to improve
signal transmission has been used by Halliburton in its commercial system to send
data from downhole devices to surface. Arps Corp’s developed a system that used
acoustic waves which were generated by the modulation of mud flow thorough a
specially designed valve. As the pulses generated by the throttling valve are very
low in pressure and last only momentarily, they do not affect the pressure of the
system. This system has been the preferred method ever since. Teleco introduced
the first commercial MWD mud-pulse tool in 1978. This tool transmitted directional
information to surface at about 0.4 bps. Data rates stabilized in the 1980s and 1990s
at 0.4 to 3 bps. This rate was sufficient to transmit reliably MWD and LWD data at
that time. In the 1990s, development of new LWD tools and introduction of rotary
steerable drilling systems and real-time drilling dynamics tools placed considerable
pressure on the ability of this transmission link to maintain data density. In response,
engineers developed a reliable MWD telemetry system that was delivering
unprecedented raw data rates by the close of 2007. In the early 1960s, Mobil Oil
published a patent (Godbey, John K., US Patent 3309656, “Logging-while-drilling
system,” published Mar. 14, 1967) for an LWD system using a rotary valve to transmit
data to the surface called the “screamer”. This transmitter used a continuous wave
up to 24 hz and transmitted data by phase-shifting the signal to encode the data.
The system had a source signal amplitude of 100 psi and was successfully tested at
rates up to 3 bps downhole. Schlumberger adapted this idea of using a rotary valve
in the development of its “Mud Siren.” In 1978, the first commercial MWD system
marketed by Teleco Oilfield Services Inc. (Stone, Frederick A., US Patent 4266606,
“Hydraulic circuit for borehole telemetry apparatus,” published May 12, 1981
contained a hydraulically driven poppet valve, powered by a powerful multistage
turbine and oil pump. In contrast to the small signal amplitudes of rotary valves, the
Teleco pulser created strong, discrete signals easily detected on surface, even from
deep wells or in situations with high pump noise. This pulser achieved data rates up
to 2 bps in commercial applications. Dresser Industries developed another
commonly used mud-pulser system, especially suited to the low electrical power
consumption required of battery-powered MWD systems (Jeter, John D., US Patent
3065416, “Well apparatus,” published Nov. 20, 1962. The initial system monitored
the revolutions of a downhole turbine and Spinnler, at Teleco, used an electrically
driven pilot valve to drive a main valve for mud-pulse telemetry (Spinnler, Ralph F.,
US Patent 3958217, “Pilot operated mud-pulse valve,” published May 18, 1976.
Design optimizations continued after the 1992 merger of Eastman Christensen and
Teleco. These companies were incorporated into Baker Hughes INTEQ in 1993.
These pulser systems provided sufficient telemetry data rate to deliver the required
data density to surface when there was relatively low availability of real-time
formation evaluation services and relatively low ROP. With the introduction of rotary
closed coop drilling systems, penetration rates increased dramatically. The available
telemetry data rates led to ROP restrictions or low data density. In addition, an
expansion of LWD and MWD services put severe demands on the available MWD
transmission data rate. In 1977, the US Energy and Development Administration
published a report giving a broad overview of the available MWD and telemetry
systems. By the early 2000s, not much had changed in terms of data rate or mud-
pulse systems, although the systems had been optimized for reliability.

A rotationally oscillating shear-valve pulser tool can generate discrete pressure

pulses and continuous wave signals in borehole fluids.
The existing systems delivered either strong, discrete pulses or low- amplitude
continuous waves. Engineers needed a new pulser combining both options to ensure
independence from the highly variable drilling environment: deep or shallow wells,
oil- or water-based mud systems, complex or simple bottomhole assemblies, high or
low drilling rates or, indeed, any combination of these conditions. An oscillating shear
valve pulser driven by a precise motor controller is able to fulfill these needs.
Designed as a self-oscillating system, such a pulser is capable of delivering a
telemetry bandwidth of 40 hz or more with low power consumption. The oscillating
movement has various advantages. The system can self-oscillate with low power
consumption at high speeds. Phase or frequency can be changed instantaneously
for efficient telemetry modulation, providing high telemetry data rates. Oscillating
valves can be adapted to flow rate and mud weight changes. The pressure signal
can be reduced by shaping the motor speed profile, or the shape of the pressure
pulse can be fully controlled to create sinusoidal, trapezoidal, rectangular, or any
other shaped signals to enable maximum signal pressure at the source and optimum
downhole signal quality for high decoding quality at surface. Oscillating systems are
also less prone to jamming from foreign bodies within their moving components.
The same year, the first full inertial platform FINDS tool was introduced which had 3
gyro giving extremely high accuracy, but it was huge in size and was quickly removed
from service.
In the late 1980’s the Cretaceous Austin Chalk was a big play in Texas and
Louisiana. Vertical drilling made occasional good wells but there were also many dry
holes. Lateral drilling through the reservoir was quite successful in some fields but
less so in others. It was thought that lateral wells could better connect with the natural
fracture networks which had a strong vertical component. Eventually these wells
came to be often steered with gamma ray in the new technique of logging-while-
drilling (LWD), or measurement-while drilling (MWD). Incidentally the source of
Austin Chalk oil is now thought to be the prolific Eagle Ford Shale below it, although
it was once thought to be self-sourced. Some of the horizontal gas wells in the
deeper Austin Chalk trend in Texas had phenomenal production, some exceeding
50MMCF per day in line. During this period the first company devoted to geosteering
as a specialty, Horizontal Solutions International (HSI), came about in the mid-
1990’s. Horizontal drilling of coal bed methane wells became common in the late
1990’s and early 2000’s. CBM wells in the Appalachian Basin were drilled on air,
mainly to de-gas the coals before mining the same seams. MWD helped to stay
within the zone when dip was changing along the pay zone. The interpretation was
actually an integration in terms of ROP, gamma ray from MWD, and samples.
Getting survey and log data is one thing but the interpretation was tedious, complex
and slow, mainly in complex structures, at the very beginning as no softwares were
available. By the late 2000’s geosteering had become well established in the shale
plays and the structural, depositional, and petrophysical variations of each play were
becoming apparent. With better well control the regional and local dips were getting
a little more predictable but in some plays like the Niobrara, Woodford, Marcellus,
and others, small faults undetectable by seismic resolution had to be interpreted by
the geosteerer, typically after a significant amount of section had been drilled past
the fault. In addition, since the survey and gamma are typically close to 50 ft. behind
the bit this means that by the time the post-fault correlation could be determined
some hole was necessarily drilled out of zone before adjustments could be made. In
some cases, it was worse in the Marcellus as high dips, sometimes very high dips
up to 45 degrees, could be encountered near reverse faults, or high-angle thrusts.
These zones were typically avoided but sometimes they were not seen on old 2D
seismic and sometimes the curve was drilled in the fault zone to try and maximize
lateral well length between the large fault zones. This made geosteering quite
challenging at times as unexpected dip changes and folds were not uncommon.
Some plays and areas of plays are relatively calm geologically. In those areas it is
of course easier to maximize in-target footage even in small target windows. In 2006,
Dr. Mike Stoner, created SES software to help geosteering analysis and
interpretation.
MWD changed directional drilling in 1980-81, with at least 5 commercial ventures
available (Teleco, ExLog, Gearhart, Schlumberger, Vec-Tel, Baroid, and others.).
Geosteering changed that, because the guidance in horizontal drilling changed from
Absolute Navigation to Relative Navigation. One of the first such products was the
NorTrak tool from Norton Christensen in the mid 1980's, which coupled resistivity
and dual gamma sensors around a drive shaft to the bit. The bend above allowed
steering the bit in response to the gamma and resistivity measurements from beds
above and below.
In early 1980, there was a need for a non-wireline, non-mud-based communication
system to be used in air-drilling applications in either deviated or horizontal wells.
Problems with existing or alternative technologies led to the interest in
electromagnetic telemetry (EMT) using drill string to earth as media. DOE in a
partnership with Geoscience Electronics Corp (GEC), developed a small diameter
prototype designed originally for non-field applications. In 1986, it was tested for 10
hr. in air-drilled horizontal wells successfully in a well drilled in the Devonian shale in
Wayne County, WV. From 1988 to 1993 the tool was ruggedized and was able to
operate for 100 hr. without failure. GEC sold the prototype to Sperry-Sun. In 1995,
DOE partnered with Sperry-Sun to develop and integrated underbalanced directional
drilling system which included the EM-MWD and downhole motor. Sperry started
offering commercial integrated systems to clients in California and Saskatchewan
for underbalanced directional drilling markets.
Frank Schuh was a key pioneer for Horizontal Drilling (and Extended Reach) in the
1980's and 1990's. Frank was instrumental in organizing the DEA joint research
project DEA-44 "Extended-Reach and Horizontal Well Technology". DEA-44 was
conducted by Bill Maurer (Maurer Engineering) in the mid-1980s. Maurer
engineering was founded in 1974.
In 1981, the first north seeking gyro system entered into the market. New technology
allowed eliminating sighting errors. In addition, it provided significant increase in
accuracy. Still required to stop drilling to record stationary surveys.
In 1985 a new technology called ring laser gyro was introduced which used a laser
path instead of a spinning wheel. This new tool provided very high accuracy. It was
costly at the time of the introduction and was sooner removed from service.
Much credit goes to Christian Wittrisch from IFP who helped develop the SIMPHOR
(Systeme d’Instrumentation et de Mesure en Puits Horizontaux) system, the
predecessor to the TLC system. The system had 3 main components that were
integrated with suite of normal logging tools. These components were: a) a set of
5/1/2" liner sleeves that surrounded standard logging tools that allowed the logging
tools protected, while "pushed" down the wellbore. A non-metallic fiberglass sleeve
surrounded the induction tool and windows were cut in steel sleeves surrounding the
density pad and caliper. The neutron and GR tools remained inside the sleeve
assemblies, with set screws along the entire logging assembly to position the
sensors where they were needed for best borehole measurements, b) a set of male
and female hepta-cable wet connectors were used to provide a downhole electrical
connection when the wireline was pumped down the drill pipe mate to the downhole
tools, and c) a side entry sub was installed in the drill string at the casing shoe
allowing the wireline to move from outside of the drill string to the inside and connect
to the logging string, ensuring a continuous electrical connection with the surface
acquisition system. In approximately 1985, the 1st logging string deployed in a
medium radius well was a 4-armed dipmeter using the Simphor system. This well
was drilled by ARCO in the Sprayberry formation in West Texas, under the project
leadership of Frank Schuh (as noted in the previous article by Mr. Dew). The dog leg
severity approached 16 deg./100 feet in a 6.5" borehole and no protective sleeves
could be run to protect the logging assembly. The logging job was very successful,
with no damaged equipment and good dip and direction results. In this specific case,
at least 3 knuckle joints and a swivel head were used between various sondes and
cartridges to maintain robust pad contact with the wellbore and minimize the
maximum rigid length of any one component. The advent of the Auxiliary
Measurement sonde was soon developed and introduced to measure tool
compression/tension during the descent in the wellbore. This provided real time
compression measurements during the tool descent, preventing tool damage due to
compression, especially critical with logging tools using nuclear sources.
Even though SIMPHOR system was used in multiple horizontal wells, this system
still relied on side entry subs, unreliable wet connectors, and a workover rig being
over the well. A second option based on the use of CT unit, with an internal logging
cable inside it, as a conveyance method was introduced in 1985 on the Berkhoepen
2001 horizontal well of Preussag Oil and Gas. After the first well 11 wells were
immediately logged showing the advantages of the system at the time. An 11/16” CT
was used for the task with a 15/32” cable inside the CT. The cable was a 7-conductor
one insulated with polypropylene.
In 1988, Elf Aquitane for its Rospo Mare project offshore Italy made one of the first
recorded attempts to log a cased horizontal well with PL tools. The horizontal well
had more than 1,970 ft of horizontal section. Elf wanted to understand well
production behavior from the horizontal and teamed up with Schlumberger to
develop a system fit for purpose. The PL tools were attached to a stiff upper section
– a stinger – outfitted with swab cups for locomotion (we would call today a pump
down). Pressure applied to the top of the stinger forced the tool out the bottom of the
well. The PL tool remined inside the stinger until it was released close to TD. The
operation was successful providing essential information for field development.
Other options such as wired CT were tested at the time like in Chayvo field by Exxon
Mobil which realized the technique was very expensive and data questionable. In
the 1990s, tractors were another option instead of CT adding flexibility, efficiency
and cost savings. The pump down logging technique is currently used mostly for
open hole logging operations rather than for cased hole ones but the idea was out
there for moving tools down the well in the horizontal section by pumping.
When Rospo Mare pilot project was originated, it was required to run production logs
to understand production behavior along the horizontal. As standard wireline logging
was not an option for horizontal wells, a new method was conceived in which logging
tools were pushed out of the tubing string in front of the interval of interest by a rigid
stinger that in turn would be pumped along the hole. To record flow profiles, a dual
completion was required to provide a means of pumping the logging tools down a
service tubing while the well was flowing through the production tubing. This
technology was very successful at Rospo Mare 6, where operations ended by
December 1984, after a trial run in the onshore horizontal well Lacq 91 in July 1984,
which had been worked over to reproduce the conditions at Rospo Mare 6. The
method used 1 11/16” regular logging tools and a 0.46” logging cable.

Survey technology timeline. Len Duncan. ISCWSA. 2016.

Evolution of directional drilling. IADC Drilling Manual

Hydraulic fracturing:
While artificial induced fracturing has been used since 1866 when the first
nitroglycerin “torpedo” was patented (U.S. Patent No. 59,936, expired in 1879) by
Edward A. L. Roberts (1829 – 1881), modern hydraulic fracturing was introduced in
1947. Roberts was a lieutenant-colonel who made an interesting discovery: he came
up with the concept of using water to “tamp” the resulting explosion of shells. Roberts
thought of implementing this principle to the oil drillings in Pennsylvania by placing
an explosive device on the bottom of a well filled with water. The water would tamp
horizontally the bedrock instead of acting vertically. Roberts torpedo was the very
first device of rock fracturing. He brought six bombs to Titusville. Torpedoes
consisted of canisters filled with gunpowder and automatic percussion cap. Workers
lowered the torpedo into the well with a long wire. One on the bottom, a metal piece,
more like the weight of the fishing rod, was lowered on the wire, hitting the percussion
cap to detonate the gunpowder. The new method had a considerable success for
new wells as well as for the old ones, with low production. Soon enough gunpowder
was replaced by nitroglycerin.
E.A.L. Roberts’s elongated shell or torpedo. Images from Drake Well Museum.
Pouring nitroglycerin was risky enough in late 19th century oilfields. Doing it for an
illegal well “shooting” led to the term “moonlighting.”
He charged USD 100 to 200 per torpedo plus royalty 1/15th of incremental production
at 1200 %. He spent about USD 250,000 to protect his patent hiring the Pinkerton
detective agency and filing numerous lawsuits to other practitioners. Upon Roberts
death, business was sold to employees forming the Independent Explosives
Company.
In 1896 German born chemist Herman Frasch (1851 – 1914) was granted a patent
(US Pat 556,669) for a method to increase the flow of oil in a well. The method was
intended to rejuvenate old wells. In PA the most common method was to use
nitroglycerin (torpedo) to shatter the surrounding rock by explosion thus promoting
new flow of oil (stimulated area around the wellbore). In IN and OH due to the depth
of the wells and the type of rock rendered this process inapplicable. He used
hydrochloric or sulphuric acid according to specified conditions to be poured down
the well and the mouth securely plugged. The generation of gases due to chemical
reactions acted to shatter the surrounding rock and open cavities. Most likely the
second effect was actually happening. In 1895, the first acid treatment (65 bbl of
HCl) were pumped in Ohio Oil Company’s Crosley Farm lease in Lima, OH. Oil
increased 300 %. This technique took hold in the industry during the 1930s. Today
we would call this acid stimulation or at least it was the precursor of modern acid
stimulation.
Patent granted to H. Frasch for a method to increase the flow of oil.
The next important step in extracting oil from the bedrock took place in 1932, when
Dow Chemical started injecting hydrochloric acid to dissolve the rocks and dig
channels for the oil. The main difference with the Frasch’s method was the fact that
the treatments were pumped instead of poured. The first test took place at Pure Oil
Co (Amoco)’s well Fox nº 6 in Midland, Michigan, near the headquarters of the
company. 500 gallons (about 1,900 liters) of acid with arsenic inhibitor in order to
prevent the steel pipes’ corrosion was used as treatment. The acid was stored in a
3 ft x 12 ft wooden tank on a wagon. The acid was transferred to the well by siphoning
through a garden hose. Treatment was displaced with oil. The new procedure was
a success, as the oil production increased threefold. Next year, in northern Texas,
another company decided to inject pressurized acid into the wellbores. This time 750
gallons (about 2,800 liters) of acid were used, followed by crude oil in order to force
the acid into the limestone. Before applying the procedure, the well was producing
1.5 barrels a day. After the procedure the production increased almost 80 times to
125 barrels a day! (one barrel = 159 liters). Nevertheless, the use of acid has limited
applications because it is successful only in the case of calcareous rocks with high
concentration of calcium which is eliminated after the reaction with the hydrochloric
acid. The method’s limitations have raised serious problems, as most oil reserves
are formed in sandstones and the acid has no reaction. The engineers needed to
find something else to crack the rocks and increase the wells’ production.
Early acidizing operations by Dowell, a division of Dow Chemical established in 1932
After WWII, Riley “Floyd” Farris (1911 – 2003) who was working for a prominent local
company in Tulsa called Stanolind was intrigued by a mystery, Stanolind was set up
in 1911 after the Supreme Court ordered the split of John D. Rockefeller’s empire
(Standard Oil). Stanolind (later Amoco and then part of the British Petroleum). He
was working as cementing specialist. He had noticed that in some wells once the
cement went into them, part of it was vanishing. As cement was not cheap at the
time (nor it is today) due to the losses, the drilling costs were rocketing. up to five
tanks of cement more. What was going on? Why do some wells ‘swallow’ more
cement than the calculations anticipate? Where was the cement going to? Farris
carried out systematic studies on 115 well files and, by correlating the pressure
exerted by the cement’s weight with the drilling depth, he reached the conclusion:
the cement’s weight and other liquids’ weight were crashing the rocks causing
fracturing. When the cement is pumped down the well, part of it was going into the
fractures. What if he would try to fracture the bedrock by pumping liquid? Unlike the
cement, the liquid could be taken out of the wellbore after fracturing the rocks. Once
the liquid is removed, maybe more oil and gas would leak out of the bedrock, he
thought. One of Farris’s colleagues, Clarence Robert “Bob” Fast (1921 – 2008),
decided to verify the hypothesis of fracturing the bedrock by injecting liquid. His
experiment took place in Klepper #1 well on the Hugoton gas field in south-west
Kansas which was completed in November 1946. The treatment took place early in
1947. Colonel Roberts operated the fracturing with explosives, while Fast and Farris
operated the first fracturing with liquid. As water involved friction and implied using
several pumps to inject it into the bedrock, Fast was looking for a way to reduce
friction. He needed a liquid to play the role of lubricant (having low viscosity) and to
get mixed with water, while not being scarce. Fast had chosen napalm, leftover from
WW II, when it had been used for flame throwers and incendiary bombs dropped
over Japan. Fast pumped into the well 1,000 gallons (3,780 liters) of gasoline
thickened with napalm, followed by another 2,000 gallons (7,650 liters) of gasoline
(3 perforated zones + 1 open hole) using cup-style straddle packers. He repeated
the procedure four times at different depths. He claimed he fractured the limestone.
Due to fire hazards all units were 150 ft apart. When the napalm and the gasoline
were recuperated, the gas erupted from the well. However, it was the same quantity
of gas as the one obtained by using the hydrochloric acid (the conventional method
to acidize the well). The first attempt for fracturing proved to be a failure.
Stanolind’s first hydraulic fracturing test, 1947, Grant County, Kansas. From Society
of Petroleum Engineers, JPTOnline
The research carried out by Stanolind was named ‘hidrafrac treatment’ and it wasn’t
meant to serve only pure science. The company wanted to make the wells more
productive. By the middle of the 20th century, finding rich oil and gas fields had
become a major problem for the US companies. During WW II the steel was used
for building tanks, canons, machine guns and other military devices. A deep well (for
example 1,300 meters) needed 61 tons of steel for drill pipes and tubes. The oil
industry faced a dilemma. It needed to increase production to meet the war demands
but could use limited quantities of steel. They turned back to the old wells,
abandoned due to low production. Until the ‘40s the American companies had drilled
more than one million wells. More than half of them had no more production or
insignificant ones. Fast and his colleagues believed fracturing could bring back to
life the old wells, while new wells could become more productive.
Fast and Farris succeeded in proving the reservoir bedrock could be fractured with
cement. They also realized that using water raised a problem. Why not use the water
mix with sand to maintain the fracturing open, they asked themselves? The first
attempt took place in eastern Texas in a well producing less than one barrel a day.
A mixture of sand, oil, soap and metals was pumped into the well and kept there for
48 hours. The soap washed away the oil from the bedrock. After the mixture was
taken out, the well started producing 50 barrels a day. The production, 50 times
larger, continued for a long time (several months).
Farris submitted a request for patent for hydraulic fracturing in May 1948. The license
was granted to HOWCO, Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company. On March 17,
1949 Halliburton conducted the first two commercial fracturing treatments in
Stephens County, Oklahoma, and Archer County, Texas. First treatment cost about
USD 900 and the other about USD 1,000. In 1953, the license was extended to all
qualified service companies.

The first commercial hydraulic fracturing of an oil well took place in 1949 about 12
miles east of Duncan, Oklahoma.
The first paper devoted to hydraulic fracturing (hydrafrac at the time) was by J. B.
Clark in 1949. He worked for Stanolind Oil and Gas company in Tulsa, OK. The title
of the paper was “A Hydraulic Process for Increasing the Productivity of Wells”. Mr
Clark also credited R. F. Farris, C. R. Fast, G. C. Howard, J. A. Stinson and other
members of the company in his paper. It was presented at the American Institute of
Mining Engineers, Petroleum Division Fall Meeting, that held in Dallas, TX from
October 1-4, 1948. At the time of the publication, the Hydrofrac process had been
applied to 23 wells in 7 different fields, with sustained increase in production in 11
wells. The process was applied to wells partially depleted, but it was also remarked
that new wells could improve their productivity by application of the process. The
concluding statement by Clark in his paper was “It is significant that the value of the
oil and gas produced to date through the benefits of this process has already
exceeded the combined cost of research, development, and all field tests”.
The hydraulic fracturing began evolving fast. By the middle of the ‘50s the drilling
companies had begun using more water and less chemical additives as fracturing
liquid. It was recommended to avoid using water as it could affect the underground
deposit and could affect oil and gas extraction. The first test on the field infirmed
these preconceived ideas and higher quantities of water were used, becoming
common practice. More than that, injection rates increased 20 times, pumping more
fluid to put higher pressure on the bedrock and lead to more fractures. New
innovations helped the pumping equipment add more horse-power to the hydraulic
fracturing.
Bob Fast and his colleagues at Stanolind continued to research hydraulic fracturing
for many years. The company became interested in using more powerful explosives
made up by rocket fuel in order to get more fractures. This idea proved fatal. On
November 11, 1970 a team drilled a well to test the fuel as fracturing liquid. A piece
of equipment was coupled to an electric line and accidentally led to an explosion.
Eight workers were killed on the spot. Fast was not at the site, although he used to
supervise the works. He was on a leave. Two years after the accident he retired.
In 1950, hydraulic fracturing was firstly used in Canada.
In the Soviet Union, the first hydraulic fracture was pumped in 1952 in the oilfield of
Krasnodar area. Russia had developed many oilfield technologies independently of
their Western counterparts. Fracturing theory was developed by S. A. Khristianovich
and J. P. Zheltov theoreticians and reported in papers in 1955. The model described
vertical fractures propagation. On the Western side, Geerdtsma and De Klerk (GdK)
developed another model in 1969 while Perkins and Kern and later Nordgren (PKN)
developed another model that was initially presented in 1961. As the GdK model is
similar to the russian model, in the literature is referred as KGD. First fracturing
treatments in Russia were performed on injection wells without proppant to achieve
higher injection rates. As the next step, production wells were treated with natural
frac sand from the river streambed (up to 130 Tn/well and on average 20 – 50
Tn/well). Peak activity was in 1958 – 1962 with 1,500 operations/year approximately,
only in 1959 there were 3,000 frac jobs/year. Main areas were Krasnodar, Volgo-
Ural district, Tatarstan (Romashkinskoe oil field, Tujmazinskoe oil field), Kujbyshev,
Chechnya, Azebajdzhan, Dagestan. In the 1980s, there was almost no activity
related to hydraulic fracturing as high production fields were considered out of need.
By late 1980s when reserves structure was re-estimated, a new age of fracturing
was reinitiated. In Ukraine the technology of hydraulic fracturing (hydraulic fracturing
of coal deposits) has been used for the first time in 1954 within the underground coal
gasification project, which foresaw extraction of combustible gases – the products of
underground coal oxidation. In 1958-1962 hydraulic fracturing technology has been
actively developed and used on the deposits of Ukraine. Hydrofracturing was mainly
used for the injection well completion and in some cases on oil wells.
An ad from 1956 claimed that Riverfracs used un-thickened water as a fracturing
fluid. It also claimed that in some formations, successful treatments had been
pumped without the use of sand as propping agent. Additives can be used in zones
previously considered incompatible with water. An old report mentioned that
Tennessee Gas Transmission Company’s well Thomas Lease nº 1 located
northwest of Big Spring, TX on February 14, 1957 was fractured using a “Riverfrac”
that involved 320,000 gal of “Riverfrac”, 7,500 gal of emulsifying agent and 225,000
lbs of sand. Pumping time was 90 min. “9 mobile Dowell units were used. Eight
Allison and the new Dowell electric unit generated more than 15,000 horsepower.
Hydraulic horsepower totaled 6,080. Water for the job was stored in two polyethylene
lined pits 50x70x7 ft. Thirty-five “Dowellers” were required to operate the equipment
and there were more than 35 spectators. Average pumping rate was 71 bpm with a
surface working pressure of 3,500 psi. Any similarity with current slick water fracs is
just a mere coincidence!

Old picture from a “Riverfrac” treatment pumped in 1957.

Ad from 1956 depicting the “Riverfrac” stimulation technology by Dowell (currently
Schlumberger).
The first patent on the borate-crosslinked guar fluids (US patent 3,058,909) was filed
in 1957 and granted in October 1962 to L. R. Kern with Sinclair (later ARCO). Metal-
based crosslinking agents developed by DuPont for plastic explosives applications
were found to be useful for manufacturing fluids for high temperature applications.
The first patent (US Pat 3,163,219) on borate gel breakers was issued to Tom
Perkins, also with Sinclair, on December 29th, 1964.
In Argentina on September 23rd, 1959, the first well (NG-10) that was hydraulically
fractured was located in Sierra Barrosa field operated by YPF. The well was an
extremely shallow well, only 328 ft deep. At the time Halliburton pumped the frac job.
About 20,000 lbm of sand were pumped.
By 1959 the oil industry had become interested in using nuclear energy. It was
proposed to use atomic bombs to fracture the wells. Edward Teller, the father of the
Hydrogen bomb, organized a meeting that year at Lawrence Radiation Laboratory –
now Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to discuss the peaceful using of
nuclear energy. Teller suggested it could be used for mining and excavations. The
US Atomic Energy Commission agreed and set up Project Plowshare. The program
focused at the beginning on using the ‘friendly atom’ as a gigantic excavator. An
agreement has been nevertheless concluded for cooperation between the
government and El Paso Natural Gas company. Scientists co-opted in the Plowshare
project wanted to find out if using nuclear explosions for bedrock fracturing is
possible and cost efficient. In 1967 scientists detonated a 29-kiloton bomb
somewhere near Farmington, New Mexico in a dedicated well drilled on purpose.
The nuke had 13 feet by 18 inches Hailed by political leaders and state officials, the
bomb had been lowered 1,200 meters into a well dug in clayey bedrock, which
resulted in a 50 meters diameter cavity. Called Project Gasbuggy the detonation was
a success, but the resulting gas contained a too high level of radioactive Tritium and
other isotopes.
Nuke used in project Gasbuggy and drilling site in New Mexico.

Researchers decided to test a more powerful bomb, aiming to produce more gas
and recoup the millions of dollars invested in creating the bombs. The next blast was
called Rulison, after a town in Colorado. It had a power of 43 kilotons and exploded
deeper in the well in September 1969. Measurements indicated the bedrock had
been fractured on a radius of 76 meters. When the gas began to flow into the well it
had high quantities of Tritium and Kripton-85. The Atomic Energy Commission
carried studies on people’s exposure if the gas would have been pumped through
pipelines to the population. Two cities would have received the highest dose of
radiation from burning gas in the kitchens and in the fireplaces, Rifle and Aspen (a
US ski resort en vogue). The dose would have been low, but it concerned only one
well. These attempts to crack the bedrock to extract hydrocarbons drew the attention
of the White House. During a speech delivered in 1971, President Richard Nixon
said that finding increased quantities of natural gas will be one of the most urgent
energy needs for the following years. He expressed support for nuclear simulation
tests to produce natural gas from geological compact bedrock that could not be
exploited at that moment. Getting the high-level go-ahead Project Plowshare
continued. The next test had included the simultaneous detonation of three bombs,
each one bigger than the one used for Gasbuggy. They were placed afar so that the
impact area would create a huge vertical gas column. The project’s supporters
believed the method would solve the energy deficit for the US. They were hoping
nuclear fracturing would become a common technology to be used every day and
anywhere a gas well is drilled.
The Rio Blanco explosion was detonated in western Colorado in May 1973, during
a period of time when the market faced low natural gas supply. The three bombs
created individual vertical columns, unconnected. The gas flow came only from the
above blast. Instead of ten-year reserves the main inheritance remains an official
plate on the site warning against digging or drilling the soil without the governmental
approval.

Picture and schematic drawing of the Plowshare project.

Not getting intimidated, the Project Plowshare planners became even more
ambitious. The next test, called Project Wagon Wheel, involved 500 kiloton devices.
This was only the beginning. If successful, the Atomic Energy Commission and El
Paso company were planning some forty-fifty blasts a year in south Wyoming
(Pinedale area). However, this time they found their match. Locals got organized to
put the project to a halt. People were concerned by the impact of ground shaking on
local roads and irrigation network. The economic part of using nuclear bombs was
put under scrutiny. The Energy Department subsequently said USD 82 billion was
spent for the project and even if the gas would have flowed for the next 25 years the
amount was not to be cleared off. It is unclear how Project Wagon Wheel was
cancelled but in January 1973 the funds for Project Wagon Wheel were cut from the
federal budget.
The Plowshare program endured from 1958 to 1975. 27 separate experiments
resulting in 35 nuclear detonations took place from 1961 to 1973. During early 1960
to early 1970 individual projects pertaining to fracturing were carried out and other
were never executed using nukes. Mostly all tests were performed in Nevada but
also took place in the oil and gas fields of New Mexico and Colorado.
As interest for hydraulic fracturing vanished, the concerns for energy security have
increased. In November 1973 President Nixon vowed to eliminate oil imports by
1980. It was to no avail. He resigned in August the following year.
The natural gas reserves have diminished to such a degree that the Congress
adopted in 1978 a law calling illegal the building of gas-fired power plants. Until the
law was repealed, the US had built many coal-fired power plants. The government
officials had no choice. The newly discovered gas fields had low production volumes,
about four out of every five wells proved to be unproductive. Facing an unfolding
energy crisis, the government was looking for solutions. Attempts to stimulate energy
offers were made. In 1976, The Department of Energy launches the Eastern Gas
Shales Project, a joint research project among state, federal and private industrial
organizations to research "unconventional" natural gas resources. A less known
program could be included in these attempts: Unconventional Gas Research
Program – UGR. The funds for the program were relatively low – USD 30 million was
its best year. Starting in 1977 and continuing in the following years, most of the funds
went to the research unit in Morgantown, West Virginia, which was carrying studies
on shales in the Appalachian Mountains. The energy industry was aware of the gas
reserves in the shale layers, but the drillings were made at shallow depths and
production was unpredictable. The energy companies drilled only those shallow
strata that could be naturally fractured. UGR wanted to change the situation.
Geologists were sent to the sites in the region to study the shale layer characteristics.
Furthermore, several wells were drilled. UGR attempted fracturing by chemical
blasts and even by congealing the bedrock using cryogenic substances. Al Yost was
one of the most talented researchers being included in the UGR program. Over more
than ten years he tested lots of new technologies that would represent the framework
for developing the hydraulic fracturing. In order to study its consequences Yost and
his colleagues placed minuscule cameras inside the wells to understand what was
going on down there and used seismic waves to chart the resulting fractures. For the
first time they tested massive hydraulic fracturing – a technology that would become
common only 20 years after being tested by Mitchell Energy company.
The next step in hydraulic fracturing history was to be written in Texas and
Oklahoma.
George Mitchell graduated as oil engineer the Texas A&M University and settled in
Houston in 1946. Together with his brother Johnny he started an oil exploration
company. In 1952 he drilled the first well - D. J. Hughes #1 – and found gas (sixty
years later the gas was still flowing out of the well). The next ten wells were
productive as well. Boonsville Bend, the area where he registered success, was part
of the Dallas - Fort Worth metropolis. He rushed to lease land up to 130,000
hectares. Following the promising start, finding out that Stanolind had successfully
used well fracturing, he immediately started to fracture his new drillings in Boonsville
Bend area. In June 1982, upon Mitchell’s insistence, his engineers had fractured the
bedrock in the Boonsville Bend area – the Barnett shale. Several years ago a
governmental program tested massive hydraulic fracturing in a well close to
Mitchell’s leased land. A mixture of water and oil as gelatinous emulsion called
‘Super K-frac’ was used. The pressure broke the drilling column and a 1,600 meters
deep cavity resulted. A month of labor was needed to localize the rupture and
cement it. Pessimistic reactions surfaced: a governmental official wrote in his report
that “probably this approach is not economically efficient.” Mitchell chose another
fracturing method: he poured 42,000 cubic meters of nitrogen in the wellbore. Then,
in 1983, he tested again fracturing by using carbon dioxide and water. The main
result? The fractured shale produced almost 7,000 cubic meters per day, a non-
convincing result. For comparison, nowadays a fractured well in the Barnett shale
could produce about 142,000 cubic meters of gas per day.
The S. H. Griffin well, fractured fifty-two years after Stanolind had tested the first
“hydrafrac” marked a landmark on the way of claiming the hydraulic fracturing as the
most important technological discovery of the latest decades. As stated by Clark in
his paper from 1949, the “hydrafrac” process consists of injecting a viscous liquid
containing a granular material such as sand under high hydraulic pressure to fracture
the formation and causing the viscous liquid to change from high to low viscosity, so
it may be readily displaced from the formation. At the time 32 jobs were performed
on 23 wells resulting in a sustained increase in production in 11 wells. The viscous
fluid was an oil such as crude oil or gasoline to which a bodying agent was added.
Napalm which was a war-surplus due to availability and price was used in most of
the experiments. Napalm was used in the war to make “jellied gasoline”. A viscosity
of 50 to 150 cp is considered adequate for the task but napalm can produce
viscosities up to considerably over 300 cp. The paper also claims that water base
fluid might be used as well, being more economical particularly in formations not
appreciably contaminated with argillaceous materials. Napalm gels are relatively
unstable, so the viscosity of the solution can revert after the fracture is pumped. 0.5
to 1 % of water added to the napalm-gasoline gel cause reversion within 8 to 24 hr.
If salt is added the time is reduced. It is also possible to break these gels in a few
minutes using a 2 % solution of petroleum sulphonates in gasoline or crude oil.
Interestingly, although a table in the paper shows that mostly all wells were treated
with proppant there is no indication about the amount, mesh size, source or even
concentration.

Drawing depicted in Clark’s paper from 1948 related to “hydrafracs”.

As part of DOE’s initiatives (gas shale program), Massive Hydraulic Fracturing
(MHF) was introduced in the Eastern Devonian shales. It is not clear in the literature
if the word massive refers to the length of the fracture wing or to the volume of
fracturing fluids. MHFs were used before in tight gas wells and most likely by analogy
its application was extended to shale gas.
Foam fracturing was another technology introduced by the shale gas program. In the
first four years of the program, more than 50 cost-shared demonstration treatments
were pumped. Previously, Devonian shale gas wells were stimulated in open-hole
completions either with explosives or with water fracs. Foam fractures reduced the
volume of water by 75 to 90 % as compared to conventional fracs. The incremental
cost of the foam fracs was offset by reduced well cleanup costs and improved
productivity.
The 1960s saw the first use of a process called “massive hydraulic fracturing” which
involves injecting treatments of very high-volume fluids and proppants. This first
treatment was also done in Stephens County, Oklahoma and occurred in 1968. It
was conducted by Pan American Petroleum. In the 1970s, this method was being
used in the Piceance Basin, the San Juan Basin, the Denver Basin, and the Green
River Basin. The 1970s was the large-scale rise and proliferation of massive
hydraulic fracturing. The process began to be used in thousands of gas wells all over
the Piceance Basin, San Juan Basin, Denver Basin the Green River Basin to recover
natural gas from low permeability sandstone. In addition to these basins the Clinton-
Medina Sandstone, and Cotton Valley Sandstone plays also benefited from the
improved economy of using massive hydraulic fracturing. By the late 1970s the
practice had also spread outside of the US and was being used in western Canada,
Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
In December 1963, Halliburton (S. Swight et al.) filled for a patent for multiple
fracturing in a well. Patent was granted in December 1966. This invention relates to
hydraulic fracturing in a well and, more particularly, to a method for successively
fracturing formations at two or more selected elevations in a well (vertical well).
Between 1986 and 1988, Mobil Oil Corporation filled for several patents mainly
dealing with the creation of sequential fractures from deviated wells (US Pat
4,687,061A), Multiple sequential hydraulic fractures (US Pat 4,718,490A),
simultaneous hydraulic fracturing (US Pat 4,830,106A) and others related to
associate topics which were the basis for the multi fracturing of horizontal wells.
By the mid-1960s, propped hydraulic fracturing had replaced acidizing as the
preferred stimulation method in the Hugoton field.
Some operators started fracturing in East Texas with waterfracs based on the
experience they had in the Austin chalk formation. High injection rates, anywhere
from 40 to 100 bpm, are used to minimize pumping time, minimize leak-off rate and
maximize proppant transport. Friction reducer is added to water to reduce friction in
tubulars and thus reducing wellhead pressure and hydraulic horse power. Proppant
concentration reached a maximum of 2 to 3 ppg. It was very common to use sweeps
to prevent proppant settling and enhance proppant transport.
In fact, in the San Juan basin slick water treatments were the prevailing type of
treatment to be utilized, pre-1968, and have continued to be so today.
Prior to the introduction of crosslinked gels in 1968 low viscosity treatments were a
very large segment of fracture treatments. With the development of crosslinked
fracturing fluids and all their attributes, low viscosity fracs were considered low
technology and became a small segment of treatments pumped.
The age of crosslinked gels was started by an Exxon subsidiary (Humble Oil and
Refinery Co) when a technique called SuperFrac was introduced in the late 1960s
which was quickly followed by crosslinked guars. The trend lasted for the last 35 to
40 years but it has been reversed to similar approach used in the 1970s. SuperFracs
used a dispersion of oil and water and a small amount of surfactant to create a
viscous frac fluid (no polymers were used at the time). The main targets were to
pump coarser mesh sizes (8-12) way further inside the fracture and to decrease the
friction pressure while pumping. Frac jobs were initially pumped in The Rocky
Mountains, California area, Illinois and Michigan basin, Oklahoma and Texas
Panhandle area, West Texas area, Gulf Coast of Texas area, Mississippi, Louisiana
and Alabama.
In the early 1970s, massive hydraulic fracturing was introduced successfully in the
industry. By 1973, Massive Hydraulic Fracturing (MHF) was used in thousands of
gas wells in the San Juan Basin, Denver Basin, the Piceance Basin, and the Green
River Basin, and in other hard rock formations of the western US. Other tight
sandstone wells in the US made economically viable by massive hydraulic fracturing
were in the Clinton-Medina Sandstone (Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York), and
Cotton Valley Sandstone (Texas and Louisiana). Frac fluids range from the more
common gelled waters to the more complex fluids such as foam and crosslinked gel
systems. Foam fracturing fluid consisted mostly of 80 % nitrogen + 20 % water with
a foaming agent (surfactant). Conventional fracturing fluids, such as water gelled
with 20 to 30 lbm of guar or chemically modified guar per 1000 gal was the most
common fluid at the time.
The history of the use of foams in the oilfield dated from the 1960s due to their
versatility and special for some applications. In 1966, Anderson, Harrison and
Hutchison reported the development of foams for drilling and wellbore cleanup. The
earliest foam fracturing treatment was performed in Jan 1968. This treatment placed
approximately 2,041 kg (4,500 lbm) of 12/20 mesh glass beads proppant with
approximately 83 to 85 % quality foam to stimulate the Brown shale formation in
Lincoln County, WV. Virtually no other use of foam stimulation was reported until the
latter half of 1973. At this time the technology spread across several basins including
Canadian operations. Most foam treatments performed during 1973-1976 were
small volume (<50,000 gal) and carried some form of propping agent. A related
patent was issued in Feb 1976, to Blauer, R.E., and Durborow, C.J., "Formation
Fracturing with Stable Foam," U.S. Patent No. 3,937,283. Surprisingly, the site of
the first massive foam stimulation was the same general location as the first
experimental treatment. In June 1976, 250,000 gal of foam fracturing treatment,
which placed 299,200 lbm of total sand, was performed in Lincoln County, WV. A
second treatment comprising 280,000 gal of foam and 309,600 lbm of total sand was
performed in November 1976 in the same West Virginia County. Both treatments
were conducted as part of the joint Columbia Gas System Service Corp / ERDA
demonstration of massive hydraulic fracturing in the Devonian shale. During 1977-
78 several publications reported variations leading to the application of foam
acidizing applications including the use of methanol instead of water for highly
sensitive formations. By 1979, it looked the technology reached a period of
consolidation and maturity. Some very large treatments were pumped in East Texas
during the latter half of 1980. The largest job at the time placed 590,000 gal of 65 %
quality foam and 1,110,000 lbm of total sand. Nitrogen, carbon dioxide, air and
natural gas have been the traditional gases used to create a foam including a
surfactant. Binary foams had been tested as well for certain special applications.
In 1974, Blauer and Kohlhaas published a paper giving results of foam fracturing in
low permeability gas wells. The same year, Blauer and Duborrow filed for a patent
on the use of foams as fracturing fluid. To place large amounts of proppant in a high
temperature well, it is required to have a stabilized foam for a long period. Special
gelling agents were introduced to overcome this problem as conventional ones tend
to increase base fluid viscosity. Foam stabilizer was originally developed for use in
massive hydraulic fracturing treatments for Mitchell Energy in the Cotton Valley
Limestone, Limestone County, TX. These wells were completed at approximately
11,000 ft depth, where bottom hole static temperature was about 280ºF. The first
massive foam frac was on the Nº 1 Stone gas well. It was fractured using 550,000
gal of 65 % quality foam carrying 660,000 lbm of 20/40 sand. Pad was 168,000 gal
(30 % of the total volume). Sand concentration reached 5 ppg and pumping rate was
about 20 bpm. Net pumping time was approximately 11 hr. Several shut downs were
experienced while pumping due to mechanical problems with the sand concentrator
which brought the total pumping time to 17 hr. After each shutdown, pumping was
resumed with no evidence of sanding out. The massive foam frac was on the Nº 1
Burleson-McBay gas well. Approximately 750,000 lbm of 20/40 sand was injected.
Kiel fracs or dendritic fracs: the process was invented and patented in 1976 (US Pat
3,933,205) by Othar M. Kiel in the early 1970s. Kiel claimed that more than 400
treatments were performed since January 1973 in his SPE 6984 paper published in
1977. He also claimed that wells showed productivity increase of 2 to 5 times
compared to conventional fracturing. As a main difference with conventional slick
water treatments, Kiel's technique used cyclic injection and implemented several
shut-down and flow-back phases in addition to pumping large volumes of water with
minimal quantities of sand. The main emphasis of the technique was to incorporate
many long secondary (dendritic) fractures along a primary fracture. As fluid is
pumped into a zone, a hydraulic fracture is created in the direction of least principle
stress. Generally, this is parallel to the stress fractures or joints in a dolomite or
limestone reservoir. If the hydraulic fracture remains in a parallel orientation to the
joints and natural fractures, the treatment may only affect the production of fluids
within the single fracture. However, if the fracture is bridged off with blocking
materials, the continuing fracture may change orientation by as much as 60 – 90º
from its original direction. The new orientation will allow other joints to be
interconnected with the main fracture and increase the total drainage area. The two
types of materials used as diverting/blocking agents are sand (100 or 20/40 mesh).
If the velocity within the main fracture does not remain high enough to transport the
proppant further down the fracture, bridging will occur at the tip of the main fracture.
This bridging is identical to a "tip screen-out" common in propped fracture theory.
Sand, added to the injection fluid at surface, and carbonate spawls, created within
the reservoir, generally bridge off in the larger lateral fractures. This could lead to the
creation of monolayers with increased conductivity. Two additional stimulation
mechanisms occur in the Kiel fracture process. The same materials that have been
used as diverting/blocking agents act as propping agents to interconnect the natural
fracture networks. After completing the pumping process, the sand and spawls
remaining in the fractures will impede the fractures from reaching closure and
effectively prop open the fractures created between the natural fractures. Finally, the
large volumes of freshwater pumped will re-dissolve salt deposits occurring in the
natural fracture networks. These two mechanisms allow for longer sustained flow
rates and producible volumes. The pumping procedure begins with a group of slicked
freshwater fluid stages and sand stages. Generally, sand concentration is 1-4 ppg.
These single stages, referred to as events, are pumped into the zone at high injection
rates. This process is usually repeated four to six times. Pumping is temporarily
terminated after sufficiently over displacing the last sand event. A valve is opened at
the surface to allow for the first "reverse flow" phase of the treatment. Kiel's theory
states that the main benefit of the flow back will be developed due to the creation
and placement of spawls within the current fractures. The flow back creates spawls
caused by the sudden pressure drop along the fracture and reverse flow of fluids
within the fracture. The sand events create spawls by colliding sand with the fracture
face. This reverse flow technique is implemented twice near the end of each stage.
All this procedure is repeated three to five more times to complete the treatment
process. Kiel established several equations and relationships to calculate the
volume and rate schedules required for each stage of a treatment. The pump
schedule is divided into stages (usually four or five, as previously mentioned) and
each stage has several events. The base fluid consists of freshwater containing
bactericides and friction reducers. In some cases, surfactants and paraffin
dispersants are included. The first event fluid volume is equal to the displacement
volume of the treatment conductor. The next ten events alternate from pad fluid to
sand-laden fluid. Each sand-event fluid volume is equal to the pumping rate divided
by two. is primarily an over-flush event which follows the last sand event. The fluid
volume in the penultimate event is equal to the displacement volume plus 100 bbl.
The final fluid event volume is equal to two thirds of event penultimate volume.
Finally, the pad/spacer event fluid volumes (Vep) are calculated. After these volumes
have been calculated, each event's volume is rounded to the nearest 10 or 25 bbl,
whichever is appropriate for the injection rate.
In 1984, foam fracs (nitrogen-assisted gelled water fracs) were used as well in the
early development of the Barnett shale by Mitchell Energy but its utilization was
abandoned quickly due to cost impacts and poor results. We have to remember that
first attempts were based on technologies used in the Devonian shales in the
Appalachian considering the analogy of both shales at that time.
High volume or massive hydraulic fractures in Barnett shale were introduced in 1986
in vertical wells. The Stella Young nº 4 well drilled and completed in 1986 better
defined the production potential of the Barnett. Mitchell Energy already had
experience acquired in a tight gas formation in East Central Texas. As a reference,
in 1978 with financial assistance from DOE, Mitchell Energy conducted the largest
MHF stimulation on record at that time in the tight gas formation in East Central
Texas.
The Marcellus shale has had a long history of fracture stimulation in vertical wells
and lessons learnt from the Eastern Gas Shale Project of the late 1970s were
subsequently applied in the Barnett. Conversely, learning from the horizontal drilling
and slick water multi-fractured wells in the Barnett were applied in the Marcellus with
commercial success.
There was plenty of experience with slick water fracs in the Cotton Valley sandstone
prior to be applied in the Barnett shale.
An experimental program of “Water Fracs” began in 1986 by Union Pacific
Resources Co. (UPRC) in Giddings field which was followed by an extensive
campaign of water fracs that resulted in excellent production results. Mostly all fracs
were carried out in the Austin Chalk but some of them were pumped in the Buda
and/or Georgetown intervals. These results enabled UPRC to retain significant
interests in the field and drill additional vertical wells. This experimental program was
not something new, but it was based on the use of large volumes of fresh water with
minimal quantities of proppants used in naturally fractured limestones for many
years. Typical stimulations for the Mississippi limestone of NW Oklahoma in the mid-
1970s involved 50-70 bpm “river fracs” with 0.25 lbm/gal of sand. Sand was
occasionally cited as scouring but particle velocities were too slow to justify this
claim. This low concentration and amount of proppant did not result in real propped
fracs. No attempts were made to divert with sand or other materials to avoid high
pressures. Treatments ranged in size from 9 to 28 thousand of gallons of water
(average 15,000 gal of water). Rates were varied from 15 to 100 bpm (average 45
bpm). Acid volumes averaging 3150 gallons (7.5 to 15 % ClH) were used. A strong
correlation that showed up during interpretations was the benefit of increased rates.
Based on this finding, vertical wells were fractured at 70-80 bpm and horizontal wells
designed for more than 150 bpm and some wells were fractured at 200 bpm which
was a challenge at the time. It also appeared that 15 % ClH gave better results than
lower acid concentrations. By early 1988, it was decided to use the technique in its
first horizontal well. To improve diversion, alternating stages of fresh water, wax
beads and acid were employed. Even other diverting agents were tested, wax beads
provided the best results. These beads were lighter than water and were used in
slugs of 1,000 to 6,000 lbm/stage at concentrations of 0.5 lbm/gal. Some operators,
at the end of the job (last 5 %) ramped up proppant concentration up to a maximum
of 2 lbm/gal as a safety measure to ensure that the near wellbore region is propped.
Acid stages were varied in size to current levels of 2 to 3-hole volumes. Another
observation of the study was the fact that wells turned into production immediately
after fracturing recovered more water and less oil than those that remained shut in
for several weeks. Surface build ups were used to infer the breakthrough of oil into
the wellbore representing the time to initiate production. These wells started
producing 100 % oil and remained water-free for an extended period. A shut-in
period of 14 days was routinely used. It was also observed that water salinity was
increasing as the well was being produced and produced water volumes were less
than injected ones. Some vertical and horizontal wells that were stimulated originally
with conventional gelled systems were refractured obtaining good results. Does it
sound familiar? Different mechanisms were used to explained water frac success.
Potential mechanisms included imbibition, gravity effects, connecting new fractures,
skin removal and cleaning, dissolution of salt fill, reservoir re-pressurization, and rock
mechanics effect (we would call geo-mechanics effects in current technical wording).
Other operators theorized that fractures have very rough surfaces in all three
dimensions leading to residual opening after fracture closing. This conductivity can
be sufficient in low permeability rock for gas flow. Residual conductivity had been
observed in laboratory and filed scale experiments.

A typical water frac treatment pumped in horizontal wells.

UPRC, a horizontal drilling pioneer, drilled its first horizontal well in the Austin chalk
in 1987. By mid-year 1995 the 1,000th well was drilled making a milestone in the
company history. That was the company's most successful exploration and
development play of the 1990s. Results of that first well, 1 Rudy Loehr in Giddings
field of Burleson County, Tex., were slim. Recovery amounted to only two or three
times that of a typical vertical chalk well. But the company continued working with
horizontal drilling technology. By yearend 1989, UPRC had completed nine
horizontal wells in the trend. By yearend 1991, it had drilled more than 200 horizontal
Austin chalk wells. More important, UPRC was recovering six times the volume of
oil and gas commonly produced by vertical wells in the trend. The company also was
driving down costs and cutting the time needed to drill a horizontal well and place it
on stream. During 1992-94, UPRC completed more than 200 horizontal wells yearly
in the chalk, the company in March 1993 completed its 500th Austin chalk horizontal
well, 1 Walther OL Unit in Fayette County, Tex. Amid the flurry of activity, UPRC
continually added to its knowledge of the chalk and of horizontal drilling and
completion methods. The success of the new deep play to development in the past
year of horizontal drilling tools that can withstand high temperatures. UPRC was also
testing multilaterals including two and three branches of horizontal wells drilled to
different formations. UPRC's 1,000th well, 2 Myers Cattle in Brazos County, Tex.,
fits the latter profile. It is a dual lateral horizontal well with a TVD of 15,000 ft. In
addition, UPRC calculates that technological breakthroughs such as geosteering,
improved drilling fluids, dual mud motors, top drive drilling systems, and retrievable
whipstocks have trimmed the average cost of horizontal chalk wells. In the Cotton
Valley fields starting in 1995, multiple wells were completed using water frac
technology. Union Pacific Resources was acquired by Anadarko in 2000.
Union Pacific Resources performed the first “water frac” in the Taylor section of the
Cotton Valley Formation in October of 1995 in the Oak Hill field. Initial results were
encouraging leading to the completion of more wells. Early results showed
comparable production for 30 to 70 % less fracturing cost with conventional fracture
treatments.
From 1987 to 1993, the gelled frac design was tweaked. In 1994, nitrogen was
eliminated without causing adverse effects. Cheaper and lower-quality sand was
used to replace white sand with no adverse effects was well. Pre-frac acid treatments
were also eliminated and the gel concentration was substantially reduced. All these
changes reduced frac costs by about 10 %.
The first three horizontal wells drilled and stimulated by Maersk in 1988 (see drilling
section for well’s details) in the Dan field were acid stimulated without proppant. The
first well (MFB-14) was stimulated with five acid fracs. Original plan considered a
straddle packer with swab cups as packing elements for isolation, but this tool was
unsuitable for pumping proppant. Zones were finally perforated and stimulated using
a conventional drillstem test string. This required isolating previously stimulated
zones with a bridge plug set just beyond the zone to be stimulated. After stimulating
the zone and killing the well, the plug was milled, and a new plug set farther up the
hole in preparation for stimulating the next zone. Each zone therefore required three
trips in the hole, rather than the envisaged one, extending the completion time.
Second well (MFB-15) was acid stimulated with seven acid fracs using a straddle
packer assembly that reduced the number of trips per fracture. The third well in the
series (MFB-13) was acid stimulated through a new packer assembly that set a
retrievable plug just beyond each zone being fractured. This technique isolated each
fracture immediately after stimulation, preventing substantial losses of completion
fluid experienced in the previous well. All three wells were drilled at different
azimuths, so fractures were at different angles related to the wellbore axis,
something that was not considered critical or important at the time. The main lesson
learned from the simulation was that, where appropriate, fractures should be
propped to prevent closure. A subsequent well that tool into consideration lessons
learnt (MFA-17), was hydraulic fractured with nine frac stages propped with 8.1
MMlbm of sand. Production did not decline as rapidly as in previous wells making
clear that fractures remained open. The greatest challenge faced during the second
series of horizontal wells was improving the completion and stimulation hardware.
There were three areas of improvement that were tackled: decrease of completion
time through minimization of number of trips, reduction of fluid losses and ability to
open and close individual access to fractures once the well was on production. It
was clear that selective completions would be the key to a horizontal well
development. Much thought, discussion and experimentation with Baker Oil Tools a
radically new completion hardware emerged that allowed one-trip stimulation for acid
fracturing and allowed leaving hardware downhole for selective opening and closing
of individual zones. The hardware left in hole comprised any number of downhole
assemblies, one per zone. Each assembly consisted of a retrievable packer, a sliding
sleeve that can be opened and closed with CT, a section of 4 ½” tubing and a seal
assembly that seats into the retrievable packer of the next assembly. The deepest
assembly seated into a sump packer that was set at the end of the hole with drillpipe.
Production tubing seated into the topmost assembly’s retrievable packer. Downhole
assemblies were deployed sequentially. Perforating per stage was a relative
complex process. Maersk used this technique successfully on two of the second set
of three wells drilled in the Dan field using acid fracturing and acid matrix stimulation.
Even if these pilots resulted in savings in time and fluid costs the well that was
completed with proppant (MFA-17) was completed with two trips per zone making
both methods comparable. In addition, downhole assemblies were susceptible to
damage by large sand flows which required a new design suitable for erosive
service.

Service assembly carrying downhole assembly

Completed well
The system previously described, resembles current frac sleeve applications were
Baker Oil Tools was one the first to propose a solution in the Bakken shale using an
enhanced and simplified version of the system suitable for propped fractures.
Successive stimulations used proppant in their designs to keep the fractures open.
Due to the high reservoir temperature frac systems included hydroxypropyl guar
(HPG) crosslinked either with titanium or antimony. Polymer loads ranged from 40
to 50 lbm/1000 gal. Initially proppant concentration was very low but as more
experience was gained higher proppant concentrations were tested. Maximum
proppant concentration was above 10 ppg and in certain cases exceeded 21 ppg
without problems to place the proppant in the formation. These concentrations were
used to combat creep, fines migration, and fracture damage. On average a well
received 7 to 15 frac stages and bottom hole pressure gauges were used to
understand fracture behavior. Due to the nature of the frac fluids, high load of
encapsulated breakers was used to assist the cleanup process. Natural frac sand
was utilized as proppant but many wells received a tail-in of resin coated proppant
(RCP) to prevent proppant flowback which prove very successful.
In 1995, in the Valhall field, propped hydraulic fracturing was a standard practice in
horizontal wells. 10 to 14 transverse frac stages were pumped in each well.
Previously the completion practices in horizontal wells evolved from acidizing wells
in 1992 to acid fracturing without proppant in the early 1990’s to the propped
hydraulic fracturing. Tip Screen Out (TSO) designs were the rule at the time and
proppant plugs were used to isolate different frac stages. It is well recognized that
the creation of sand plugs is an art more than a science in a horizontal well so it was
common to have problems to isolate stages and in many times it was required to
repeat the process and most likely fracture was pumped in the previous set of
perforations.
After an experiment in 1996 where only a small amount of gel was used, and the
production results were way above offset wells, engineers started questioning gelled
frac design. In 1997 a new approach was introduced. The new frac method was a
slick water frac used and refined by Union Pacific Railroad Corporation (UPR) for
use in the low-permeability Cotton Valley sandstone formation of East Texas. The
new design used large amount of water and low proppant concentration. This
approach allowed UPR to produce the same amount of gas at substantially reduced
capital expenditures. This change was a breakthrough and challenged plenty of
paradigms that the industry had at that time (some of them still persists today!). Cost
of stimulation was reduced by about 50 % with similar to higher production rates.
Actually, slick water fracturing was not a novel technology. In the 1950s, this type of
fracs were used successfully in many areas. Prior to the development of crosslinked
gels, mostly all treatments were pumped using low viscosity water-based fluids. The
age of crosslinked gels started by SuperFrac, a fracturing technique that Exxon
introduced in the late 1960s that used high viscosity fluids to stimulate oil and gas
wells.
Slick water fracs were introduced in 1996 in Barnett shale. As some people was
reluctant to use high volume of slick water and low proppant concentration, the first
attempts were done using slick water but using still larger amounts of sand. These
treatments were denominated light sand fracs (LSF). Tests began in May 1997 in
three wells, all with slight variations on perfs, frac design and placement procedures.
These initial wells were Askey B-4, Bryan D-3 and W. D. Johnson B-14 all located
within a mile and a half of each other. First well production results were outstanding,
the second well had average numbers and the last one was poor.
They main reason to switch from x-linked frac fluids to slick water fracs was cost. It
is estimated that the change saved 30 % of total cost without sacrificing production.
But sooner they realized that comparable treatments in terms of amount of fluid and
proppant produced much better production results. This understanding brought to
the recompletion of multiple vertical and horizontal wells with excellent results.
The first refracture treatment of the lower Barnett occurred in 1998 in the B.S. Carter
Jr. nº 4 well by Devon Energy. This well was originally fractured in 1995 with a small
slick water treatment and refractured using the high volume slick water fracture job.
Devon B.S. Carter Jr. nº 4 production results after refracturing.
By 1997, Mitchell Energy Corporation completed more than 300 wells. In some of
them water fracs were used in a continuing effort to reduce well cost. Designs
consisted of the same volume of fluid (water with a clay stabilizer and friction
reducer) and 10 % of the proppant volume as is normally pumped in conventional
treatments. BJ Services was part of the effort to help Mitchell in his tenure.
Conventional jobs are pumped to a maximum concentration of 3 ppg whereas water
fracs are being pumped with less than 0.5 ppg for about 60 % of the treatment. In
theory both designs should have similar half-lengths. The decrease in chemicals and
sand has led to savings of 60 % approximately. Mitchell Energy claimed at the time
that they were cautiously optimistic about the results.
In 1997, Devon Energy began experimenting with water fractures, or light-sand,
fracturing treatments, which were at the time, being successfully applied in the
Cotton Valley sandstone which was located approximately at 100+ miles to the east
of Forth Worth where the core are of Barnett shale is. Devon believed that similar
success would be achieved in the Barnett shale with large-volume slickwater
treatments and subsequently experimented with several versions of these
treatments before evolving to a more standard design. A typical treatment at the time
consisted of about 750,000 gal of slick water and 80,000 lbm of proppant pumped at
60 bpm, with proppant concentrations averaging 0.1 to 0.5 ppg throughout the
treatment.
In April 2000, Pan American Energy a joint venture of British Petroleum and Bridas
Corp drilled the well LA.xp.89 in Lindero Atravesado field located in the Neuquén
basin, Argentina. The target was the tight gas bearing sandstones of the Cuyo Group
exactly on Punta Rosada, Lajas and Molles formations. Well was drilled vertically to
a TD of 13,832 ft MD. 377 ft of Los Molles were crossed partially. During the well
completion, five zones were hydraulically stimulated between 10,496 ft and 13,090
ft in Lajas and Punta Rosada formation with a total of 600,000 lbm of ceramic
proppant becoming the largest frac job in the area what it was considered a massive
frac job. BJ Services provided the fracturing equipment. On June 20th, 2000 the first
frac stage was pumping. After running a specialy designed packer the well was put
on production on July 13th, 2000.
By 2001, Anadarko in the Cotton Valley was testing a slightly different approach for
fracturing. Initially they had been working with crosslinked fluids, passing through
slick water fracs and finally testing a designed that they called “hybrid” that used slick
water pad to create the fracture and then a low-concentration, crosslinked fluid to
carry the proppant at moderate concentrations. This approach provided better
results that previous frac designs. This is the first report of a “hybrid” design in a
technical paper I found.
In July 2011, Apache Energía Argentina (subsidiary of Apache Corporation)
completed the first multi-fractured horizontal well (ACO.xp-2001h) in Molles shale
formation (gas window) in the Anticlinal Campamento Oeste block which is deeper
than Vaca Muerta shale formation. The well had 2,953 ft of lateral drain and was
cased and cemented. It was completed with 10 frac stages using Plug & Perf
completion technique and 3.0 MMlbm of ceramic proppant.
The technique of high volume slick water frac fluids and low proppant concentration
was accepted as the right one for shales and was quickly implemented in other
shales such as Marcellus, Bakken, Woodford and Eagle Ford to cite a few. Operators
realized that the “recipe” was not applicable everywhere and the design needed to
be reformulated for each zone in particular even applying once again crosslinked
fluids with higher proppant concentration.
Surprisingly, industry has shifted again to low friction fluids. The last innovation has
been the introduction of high viscosity friction reducers which provide low friction but
adequate proppant carrying capacity with a very simple chemistry at relative low
cost. Viscosity is adjusted by increasing the concentration of the friction reducer.

Multi-stage completion techniques:

A couple of separate technologies that were commonly used in the oilfield and very
mature in development were put together to enhance the completion process:
multiple perforating guns and a plug with its setting tool in a single trip pumped down
on wireline. Preliminary attempts were done only with multiple casing guns and in a
separate trip prior to run the guns the plug was set.
We can track back well isolation tools such as packers and plugs to the 1880s in
County Penn when wells were completed open hole with brass tubing and wooden
rods. Fresh water influx was a problem. One producer knew if he could slow the
water production his oil well would be much more efficient. Since it was horse and
buggy days, the producer took the horses feed bag that was made of canvas. Cut a
hole in the bottom and slipped it over the brass tubing. Somehow securing the
bottom the filling with oats, then tying off the top, ran in the hole. Placing the feed
bag (we might call it a packer today) below the water table. As the water ran down
to the feed bag causing the oats to swell it sealed off the water.
Probably developed later than the "feedbag packer", the "rag packers" were the
“evolution”. A beveled 6"+ diameter steel plate that would just fit inside 7" casing was
welded on the bottom of a joint of tubing, then burlap potato sacks were wrapped
tightly around the tubing out to the 6"+ diameter plate, butted up to the plate. The
burlap was secured with softline or baling wire and cut in length-wise slits. The
packer was run to depth, then a combination of pick up and rotation was applied to
set the packer. Flow was contained to the tubing so subsequent plugging activities
could be carried out. In this case, these packers were used for abandoning flowing
wells with containment issues in the middle of an old water flood. Originally any
material that could provide certain level of isolation was used as a plug. Initial
attempts used wood, leather, cork, etc.
Plugs are the other master-piece of the plug and perf completions. They have been
around for years with the same objective: to isolate temporarily or for good zones
due to different geological or technical reasons. What it has evolved are the materials
mainly in drillable versions.
Perforating guns derived from several early inventions but mostly took advantage of
the developments in the military field to pierce heavy armor mostly composed of
metal plates of military vehicles (mainly Main Battle Tanks or MBT).
A 1902 invention (US Pat 702,128) that used a scissors-like expanding mechanism
to drive and then retract perforating levers through the casing can be traced back as
one of the first attempt to perforate casings. In 1910, the first mechanical perforator
was patented. In June 1926, W. S. Jones and H. U. Baker filled an application for a
patent (US Pat 1,685,492) on a perforator particularly for casing perforators. Patent
was granted in September 1928, but its utilization is doubted.
In 1904, Charles Heeter filed for a patent (US Pat 891,065) related to a packer device
Patent was granted in 1908. The device included slips, a rubber element to pride
isolation and an expansion cone to further increase the rubber element.
The cement retainer was an invention of Mr. Reuben C. Baker (Baker Oil Tools later
on). Patent was filled in January 1912 and granted in August of the same year (US
Pat 1,035,674). The design has been greatly modified and improved compared to
the original one. The Oil Well Cementing Practices published in 1959 claimed that
its utilization was not widespread in the industry.
Drawing depicting the original cement retainer invented by R. C. Baker in 1912 and
a modern version of the cement retainer.
Hugh L. Mclaughlin filled for a patent application on plug for oil and gas wells in 1912.
In January 1913, the patent was granted. In the patent detailed description, it is
claimed that the plug can be removed using a suitable tool that releases the stem by
jarring or by unscrewing from the collar. In essence, he described a retrievable
bridge plug.

Drawing depicting permanent plug original invention and a modern version of the
tool.
In 1932, R. C. Baker patented the first cement retainer (US Pat 1,035,674A) which
was designed to pack off between the casing and the tubing when pumping cement
through tubing. This invention made cementing more efficient and effective.

Cement retainer and setting tool

Patent 2,121,002 from 1936 filed by Baker for a cement retainer and a bridge plug.
In 1937, another patent (US pat 2,121,051) was filed by Ragan and Burt who worked
for Baker for a cement retainer.
In 1938, Otis T Broyles filed for a patent (US Pat 2,189,937) related to deep well
apparatus which claimed that the invention refers to a packer setting device. Patent
was granted in 1940. This description corresponds to a packer.

Drawing depicted in patent US Pat 2,189,937.

Add from old Baker’s cement retainer
In September 1937, Frank S. Kniss filed for a patent (US Pat 2,130,138A) that was
awarded in September 1938 on perforating gun for oil wells that used steel bullets.
Bullets were fired by an electric current and the cable was used as well to run and
retrieve the device.
In September 1938, Henry S. Riehmond filed an application for a patent on casing
perforating gun. Patent (US Pat 2,192,591) was awarded in March 1940. These
patents although very ingenious were not of practical use.

Early patented designs that attempted to cut or perforate holes in casings.

On April 18th, 1939 McCullough of Los Angeles got a patent (US Pat 2155322A) that
was filled in March 1937 for an invention that included multiple downhole guns that
shot steel-jacketed bullets through casing and about a foot into de producing
formation was patented. Commercial versions of the gun perforator were used
successfully since 1927. Early forms were bullet devices using actual projectiles.
Lined-shaped charges would follow for deeper penetration in the period of 1935 –
1939.
Perforating devices based on steel bullets.
Modern shaped charges are based on the Munroe or Neumann effect. It is the
focusing of blast energy by a hollow or void cut on a surface of an explosive. The
earliest mention of hollow charges occurred in 1792. Franz Xaver von Baader (1765–
1841) was a German mining engineer at that time; in a mining journal, he advocated
a conical space at the forward end of a blasting charge to increase the explosive's
effect and thereby save powder. The idea was adopted, for a time, in Norway and in
the mines of the Harz mountains of Germany, although the only available explosive
at the time was gunpowder, which is not a high explosive and hence incapable of
producing the shock wave that the shaped-charge effect requires. The first true
hollow charge effect was achieved in 1883, by Max von Foerster (1845–1905), chief
of the nitrocellulose factory of Wolff & Co. in Walsrode, Germany. By January 1886,
Gustav Bloem of Düsseldorf, Germany had filed U.S. Patent 342,423 which was
granted in May 1886 for hemispherical cavity metal detonators to concentrate the
effect of the explosion in an axial direction. Even though it is not clearly defined in
the same words in the patent, the device had a cavity that was able to produce the
effect. The Munroe effect is named after Charles E. Munroe, a civilian employed as
a chemist by the Unted States Navy’s Naval Torpedo Station, who discovered it in
1888 five years after the findings by von Foerster who made a very detailed and
comprenhensive description of the effect. He noticed that when a block of explosive
guncotton with the manufacturer's name stamped into it was detonated next to a
metal plate, the lettering was cut into the plate. Conversely, if letters were raised in
relief above the surface of the explosive, then the letters on the plate would also be
raised above its surface. In 1894, Munroe constructed the first crude shaped charge.
Although Munroe may not be the first to discover the hollow charge effect, he was
perhaps the first to successfully demonstrate the lined cavity principle by defeating
a massive steel target (a cube made up of plates of steel and iron of four inches and
three-quarters thick with a hollow charge of dynamite of nine pounds and a half in
weight). Although Munroe's discovery of the shaped charge was widely publicized in
1900 in Popular Science Monthly, the importance of the tin can "liner" of the hollow
charge remained unrecognized for another 44 years. Part of that 1900’s article was
reprinted in the February 1945 issue of Popular Science, describing how shaped-
charge warheads worked. It was this article that at last revealed to the general public
how the fabled Bazooka actually worked against armored vehicles during WWII. In
1910, Egon Neumann of Germany discovered that a block of TNT, which would
normally dent a steel plate, punched a hole through it if the explosive had a conical
indentation. The military usefulness of Munroe's and Neumann's work was
unappreciated for a long time. Between the world wars, academics in several
countries – Myron Yakovlevich Sukharevskii (Мирон Яковлевич Сухаревский) in
the Soviet Union, William H. Payment and Donald Whitley Woodhead in Britain, and
Robert Williams Wood in the U.S. – recognized that projectiles could form during
explosions. However, it was not until 1932 that Franz Rudolf Thomanek, a student
of physics at Vienna's Technische Hochschule, conceived an anti-tank round that
was based on the hollow charge effect. When the Austrian government showed no
interest in pursuing the idea, Thomanek moved to Berlin's Technische Hochschule,
where he continued his studies under the ballistics expert Carl Julius Cranz. There
in 1935, he and Hellmuth von Huttern developed a prototype anti-tank round.
Although the weapon's performance proved disappointing, Thomanek continued his
developmental work, collaborating with Hubert Schardin at the Waffeninstitut der
Luftwaffe (Air Force Weapons Institute) in Braunschweig. By 1937, Schardin
believed that hollow-charge effects were due to the interactions of shock waves. It
was during the testing of this idea that, on February 4, 1938, Thomanek conceived
the shaped-charge explosive (or Hohlladungs-Auskleidungseffekt (hollow-charge
liner effect)). It was Gustav Adolf Thomer who in 1938 first visualized, by flash
radiography, the metallic jet produced by a shaped-charge explosion. Meanwhile,
Henry Hans Mohaupt, a chemical engineer in Switzerland, had independently
developed a shaped-charge munition in 1935, which was demonstrated to the Swiss,
French, British, and U.S. militaries. During World War II, shaped-charge munitions
were developed by Germany, Britain, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. The
development of shaped charges revolutionized anti-tank warfare. Still, there was a
lapse between military applications and oilfield applications.

Add from Popular Science magazine dated August 1938 portraying perforating tools
used at that time.
Retrievable cement retainers came on the market about 1939. Halliburton Oil Well
Cementing Company acquired Yowell Tool which was used for washing screens and
perforations and redesigned it as a retrievable cement retainer.
In 1940, the Retrievable Cement Squeeze Packer Method was patented, US Pat
2,316,402A. The classic design of set down to set packer with one set of slips and
bow springs.
In 1941, Texas Iron Works (TIW) was granted with a patent for the first automatic
bottom-hole packer.
In 1942, Baker Model “K” Cement Retainer appeared in the Baker Catalog (Cast
Iron), the classic cement plug or bridge plug design of slip-element-slip.
In 1942, Burt who worked for Baker, received a patent (US Pat 2,290,142) for a
retrievable well packer. Patent was filed in 1939. This patent became later the Model
D permanent packer, which enabled multiple completions.

Drawing depicted in the original patent filed by Mr. Burt in 1939.

In 1946, McLemore firstly used the shaped charge in the oilfield patch. Rinehart
revealed a design of shaped charge capable of perforating casing, tubing and
wellbore fluid. He reported that only two sizes were designed, 28-gram charge for
the perforating of 6 5/8” and larger casing fire from a 5” carrier and the 21-gram
charge for the perforating of 5 ½” casing and fired from a 3 5/8” carrier. Originally
28-gr charges would make a hole of approximately ½” in diameter and the 21-gram
charge would make a hole of approximately 3/8” in diameter. These holes could be
larger or smaller by adjusting the dimensions of the liner and the charge itself. Both
sizes of charges were designed to give approximately the same penetration. The
extra amount of explosive in the 28-gram charge was used to create a bigger hole.
The reason of only having two sizes was due to production problems or limitations
at the time. Robert, Texas A&M’s Petroleum Engineer, was president of the Otis
Engineering Corporation since 1957 until his retirement in 1975. He was also a
director and member of the executive committee of the Halliburton Company, the
parent organization of Otis, from 1968 until his retirement. In 1941 he left his position
as division engineer with the Sun Oil Company to enter the Army Air Force. In 1946
he joined the small group that formed Welex Jet Services and was instrumental in
the development and licensing of the "shaped" charge or "jet" process of perforating
oil well casing.
Old picture showing a casing perforator prior to go in hole.
In 1948, Baker filed for a patent related to pressure operated well apparatus which
claimed that the invention could be used for displacing, setting, locking, releasing
and removing tools, packer and other means actuated by explosion or gas
generation. Patent was granted in 1953 (US Pat 2,637,402). This description
corresponds to a setting tool. In 1950, Baker E-3 Setting Tool appeared in the Baker
Catalog.
In April 1949, R. C. Baker was awarded with a patent (US Pat 2,467,801) on
hydraulically set well packer as depicted in the drawing.
Drawing from Pat 2,467,801
In 1960, George M. Raulins who worked for Camco Inc filled for a patent on well
tubing sliding sleeve valve or what we know as a sliding sleeve in current wording.
Patent was awarded in 1963 (US Pat 30,711,193A).

Drawing from original Raulins’s patent application

Heinrich Mohaupt (1915 – 2001) who was a swiss American inventor and machine
gunner prior to WWII had a revolutionary idea. He designed conically hollowed-out
explosive charges to direct and focus the detonation energy into the target (a shaped
charge). The invention was patented (US Pat 2,947,250) in 1960. It was used to
develop the bazooka to destroy battle tanks.

Preliminary technologies designed to perforate casing including shaped charges.

In 1963, D.L. Fry got a patent for a plugging device for wells (US Pat 3,091,293).

Drawing from US Pat 3,091,293

In Dec 1966, Halliburton was granted a patent (US Pat 3,289,762) that was filled in
1963 on multiple fracturing in a vertical well where a baffle and a ball were used to
isolate the previous zone. Although the title of the invention claimed it was for
multiple zones it was designed for two zones, but the concept has been well
expanded to our days for truly multiple zones.
Extract from the patent that depicts the main idea using a baffle and a ball to isolate
a previously fractured zone.
There was a fiberglass plug that dates back to the 1970s with very limited use. And
a few other plugs and cement retainers that were made to be easily drilled up back
in the 1950s.
Open hole packers and sleeves were designed in the 1980s.
Horizontal completions in the 1980s were mostly in fractured carbonate reservoirs
which included mainly acid stimulations and diverters to enhance acid diversion.
Attempts with propped hydraulic fractures were also carried out. Open hole un-
cemented slotted or pre-perforated liners were the most common completion method
at the time. Main drawback was the inefficient area contact due to poor diversion. In
the 1990s, several technologies were introduced to cope with the problem such as
open hole liners equipped with external casing packers (ECP) inflated with either
mud of cement for zone isolation, and fully cemented liners. Internal isolation inside
the casing was carried out with either sand or gel plugs and later with mechanical
plugs due to the unpredictive behavior of first ones manufactured in metal or
composite materials.
First multi-fractured horizontal well in North Sea

First multi-fractured horizontal well in Bakken shale and other milestones

First open hole packer and sleeves were run in Canada by mid 1990s.
In 1991, the first multi-fractured horizontal well was completed in Texas, US.
In 1993, Halliburton was awarded with a patent (US pat 5,271,468) for a down hole
tool made of non-metallic components namely composite materials. In this patent
drillable composite cement retainer and plug were covered. Later, multiple patents
were filed in for other tools based on composite materials.

Drawing of composite plug from patent disclosure.

In 1994, Jorgen Hallundlaek decided to bring to market an idea developed as part of
his graduate thesis while a student at the Technical University of Denmark. He
started working on the idea since 1987 and involved the engineering of a precision
robotic tool that would answer the industry’s need of a more reliable, cheaper and
efficient technology for intervention of high angle and horizontal wellbores. The tool
developed as a result was the well tractor. He founded Welltec in 1994 to pursue his
idea. Although earlier attempts were recorded, tractors successfully arrived in the oil
field in the mid-1990s. In 1996, the first tractor service was performed on a well in
Norway. Tractors were developed as a better solution to CT interventions. Prior to
1996, interventions had been performed almost exclusively by CT units. By 2009,
tractors took over the operations in most of the cases. As tractors are controlled
using wireline there were a perfect solution to deploy casing guns for perforating or
plugs to isolate zones in horizontal wells.
First flow-thru composite frac plugs were developed for completions of coalbed
methane tretaments in the Northeastern US in 1996. Halliburton was a pioneer on
the development.
Drawing from Halliburton’s presentation showing use of composite plugs back in
1996.
Open hole packers and sleeves were run in the Permian Basin and Granite Wash in
the early 2000s. A maximum of 8 stages was the limit at the time.
In the 2000s, the introduction of swellable packers and open hole mechanical and/or
hydraulic packers made easier the isolation of open-hole sections in replacement of
ECPs. By mid-2000s, ball activated frac sleeves were introduced. These devices
derived from ball activated sleeves used for other applications mainly to either open
or shut in production tubing strings. By 2001, the use of composite bridge plugs in
multi-fractured vertical wells was a mature technology and widely used by operators.
If we observe the process as basic steps we always perforate, fracture, isolate and
repeat the process. Tools and techniques have varied along time but the concept is
still the same.
Welltec provided initial tractor services for conveyance of tools in April 2003 in the
Barnett shale for Devon prior to the introduction of pump-down technique.
First cemented sliding sleeve was performed in 2003.
Plug and Perf completion technique is at the end of the day a simple methodology
that includes standard tools well known by service companies and operators. The
success of the method came from the merge of different tools that lead to a reliable
technology. Basically, what is required is a plug to isolate a zone that was previously
fractured and casing guns for limited entry perforating as multiple clusters are
required. Limited entry treatments in vertical wells were very common and a well-
established technology introduced mainly to reduce the cost of the completions in
mature and tight gas wells. It is possible to stimulate several zones limiting the
number of perforations thus forcing the frac fluid to go into all perforations. In
practices as the number of perforations increase, the diversion effectiveness
decreases. In the 1990s looking for options to decrease the well cost to get positive
economics, operators started testing different technologies. As usual they started
with what they have at hand at that time. By that time slick water fracs were common
in the tight gas business. The Piceance Basin in Western Colorado is an example of
multi-layer tight gas completions. Activity in the Basin started as early as 1983. Other
technologies were used at that time: frac mapping and composite flow thru plugs.
Several zones with multiples layers in each zone were hydraulically fractured
sequentially using plugs with either balls or flapper valves that allowed quick flowing
back after finishing stimulation. Years later the wells became horizontal, but the
technology needed a slight adjustment as gravity was not helpful to run the plugs
and the casing guns. The solution was to pump down the string on wireline. Limited
entry perforations became clusters (“a different name for the same sauce”) and plugs
evolved in different models in order to reduce or eliminate the milling out associated
time.
Tracking back Plug and Perf completions it is possible to find some information that
has been well reported. In September 2005 a SPE paper that covered in high
detailed completion practices in multi-fractured wells did not mention the Plug and
Perf methodology, only baffle and ball technique is reported meaning that by 2005
either the technology was not in use or it was not reported yet. In 2011 in a paper by
D. Lehr and D. Cramer from Baker Hughes and Conoco Phillips, it is claimed that
treatment isolation using composite bridge plugs has been practiced for about 18 yr.
in North America in horizontal and multi-layer vertical wells, which brings the year to
1993, but those completions were not Plug & Perf type. In April 2006, E. M. Blanton
and G. Mackenzie from Baker Oil Tools described in a SPE paper the use of Perf
and Plug completions with some detail. No further references are found at the end
of the paper. In May 2007, during the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference,
Halliburton made a presentation where options to complete and stimulate horizontal
wells were depicted. Perf and Plug was mentioned as one of the options, but it was
not described in any detail. In July 2007, Dyna Energetics published a brochure
where stage gun module for Plug and Perf was described in detail. In 2008, D. Smith
and P. Starr from Halliburton at another SPE paper detailed Plug and Perf
completions using composite plugs.
Baker Oil Tools reports utilization of ball-operated frac sleeves in 2005. Sliding
sleeve invented in the 1960s, were the precursor of ball activated frac sleeves.
In 2005, as well, first use of swellable packer was reported.
Recloseable frac sleeve was developed in 2006 in a ball-drop operate version.
In a SPE paper published in April 2006 by Baker Oil Tools, it was reported that
previously to pump-down operations in the Barnett shale, composite plugs were run
and set on tractor by means of electric wireline. It was also mentioned that several
operators were using plug and perf methodology, so most likely technology should
had been introduced in an earlier time (2004 or 2005). Previously to the use of the
tractor, plugs were deployed on coiled tubing which was costly and time consuming.
The search for less expensive and more efficient operations led to the tractor and
later to the pump down option both on wireline.
First inflatable ECP as an isolation barrier / packer for open hole and frac sleeves
were used in 2006.
In early 2007, US Pat 7,168,494 was granted on dissolvable downhole tools. Many
different tools and applications have been introduced in the industry since then.

In 2007 several publications report the use of Perf and Plug completions or related
operations meaning the technology was widely applied by multiple users.
Baker Oil Tools reports utilization of composite plugs in 2008.
In June 2008, Baker Oil Tools presented a paper where they described the frac
sleeve system in detail as a way to optimize multi-fractured horizontal well
completions. In the paper, it was mentioned that the technology was applied in
Fayetteville shale wells but a database at the end of the paper showed that it was
deployed in many different formations. It also claimed that the convergence and
integration of systems and processes developed during the 1990s and the early
years of this decade (2000s) have provided a foundation for new technologies for
unconventional reservoir applications.
In 2009, Baker Hughes filed in for a patent (US Pat 8,403,037B2) for dissolvable tool
and method. The base material was an alloy that contained magnesium in its
composition that reacted with the ambient to degrade completely in fine particles
eliminating the need of either retrieving or milling out. A bird told me that
management did not recognize what they had at the time and did not cover every
application under the sun. They patented the material, but not the tools we use today.
Baker Oil Tools reports utilization of degradable balls (In-tallic technology) in 2010.
First cemented toe initiation sleeve and first cluster system were designed and
landed in 2010.

Micro-seismic mapping:
During the 1970s, there were multiple efforts to develop models to infer the
dimensions of the hydraulic fractures based on pressure and production
performance but there was no one for measuring the dimensions and the orientation.
The lack of hard data to compare to, was another problem for the development of
such models. DOE funded through national labs basic science research on tiltmeters
and micro-seismic. In addition, it joined forces with GRI to fund a laboratory for
studying hydraulic fracturing in systematic and scientific manner. The objective was
to develop a tool that could lead to a commercial fracture mapping service. Support
from DOE and Gas Research Institute (GRI) played a critical role in developing
micro-seismic frac monitoring. First systematic research was a geothermal project
(Hot Dry Rock Project) funded by DOE and carried out by Los Alamos National
Laboratories in the 1970s. Later in 1970s, DOE funded Sandia National Laboratories
to build and deploy receivers for similar frac mapping technology. In the 1980s, this
process was used at the DOE multi-well site experiment (M-site) in Colorado
(Piceance Basin) to successfully monitor four out of five major fracturing
experiments. The multi-well site experiment was part of the Western Gas Sands
Program. In early 1990s, DOE funded joint Sandia and Oyo Instruments project that
resulted in the development of a multi-level receive system that could be run on a
fiber-optic wireline. DOE also funded early research related to tiltmeters, a second
fracture mapping approach.
The Multi-Site Hydraulic Fracture Diagnostic Project was initiated to develop
independent diagnostic technologies and methodologies that will result in increased
accuracy in measuring hydraulic fracture dimensions. Micro seismic mapping and
tiltmeters were used and tested for that purpose. The site of the former DOE Multi-
Well Experiment (MWX) near Rifle, Colorado was chosen for the experiments mainly
because of the extensive data available from previous experiments and the existing
facilities including wells suitable for experimenting. M-Site field work and data
analysis began in 1992 and were finished by the end of 1996. Even though results
from the experiments were largely published, their conclusions looked contradictory
at the time as fractures were very complex in nature not following previous
assumptions (very simplistic by the way). The application of hydraulic fracturing in
unconventional reservoirs brought back the issue and with better theory, tools and
analyses it was possible to accept that all those observations were the rule rather
than the exception.
In 1992, surface tiltmeters became commercial when Pinnacle Technologies was
founded. The technology was also validated at the M-site. By late 1990s, Pinnacle
had a downhole tiltmeter commercial tool. In 2002 Carbo Ceramics acquired
Pinnacle Technologies and in 2004 DOE made another partnership with Pinnacle to
develop a single tool that combined micro-seismic mapping and tiltmeters. In 2008,
Halliburton purchased the company.
There were early attempts to use micro seismic frac mapping in the Barnett but all
failed. Sandia National Laboratories at Los Alamos, New Mexico with GRI assistance
was working on a downhole system which could identify and locate minor seismic
events generated during fracture stimulation. The first of the tests was in 1995 in the
well Michael Clough nº 2 as the treatment well and the W. D. Johnson B nº 8 as
monitor well both in the Smith CSL survey, A-744. Many events were recorded but
tool orientation problems prevented their triangulation and location. The second test
was in 1997 in the Sewell Ranch nº A-2, E. Heard survey, A-393 as the treatment
well and the Sewell Ranch nº 3, E. Heard survey, A-392 as the monitor well. This
test also failed. Even though results were disappointing, the technology showed that
micro seismic events were possible to be listened and recorded.
In May and July 1997, a consortium of operators and service companies conducted
a series of hydraulic fracture imaging tests in the Carthage Cotton Valley gas field of
East Texas. Micro-seismic data were collected and processed for six hydraulic
fracture treatments in two wells (three completion intervals per well). One well (21-
10) was completed with gel-proppant treatment in which a viscous crosslinked gel
was injected to put high proppant concentration. The second well (21-09) was
completed using treated water and very low proppant concentration (waterfracs).
The intention was to understand why waterfracs have been shown just as effective
as the conventional gel-proppant treatments in that field but at greatly reduced cost.
Two 2,350-ft-long, 48 level, 3-component geophone arrays were used in the two
monitor wells. The interpretation included events locations and focal mechanisms.
In 1998, Pinnacle Technology was using tiltmeters to evaluate fracture geometries
and orientations. Tools and technology had substantially improved since the last
failed attempt. The technology had already been proven in other areas such the
Cotton Valley, East Texas and UPR completions. The first project area selected was
on Mitchell’s Sewell Ranch lease where tiltmeters and micro-seismic frac mapping
were used. Both techniques proved very useful. Multiple wells were monitored after
this successful test showing the complexity of the fractures and the frac barriers
containing them only in certain cases.
Timeline of technology developments by Pinnacle up to 2008
In the winter of 2001-2002, William Production Co carried out a project to assess
well spacing and to assist with hydraulic fracture optimization in the William Fork
formation, Peceance basin, Colorado. Some vertical gas wells in the Grand Valley
field and in the Rulison field were fracture mapped as part of the pilot project.
Historical stimulation practices (early to mid-1990s) were mainly based on
crosslinked fluids, small sand volumes and limited entry perforation designs. By late
1990s, stimulation designs evolved to large proppant volumes, still high viscosity
crosslinked fluids and reduced number of entry points. Beginning in 2001 some wells
were stimulated with water fracs and limited entry perforations. Stimulations were
mainly water fracs with limited entry technique. The pilot attempted to understand
frac growth (frac dimensions) and the efficiency of limited entry treatments. The pilot
allowed William to optimize field development leading to a 10-acre well density.
Between March 2000 and December 2001, Devon used micro-seismic mapping in
the first horizontal wells they drilled in the Barnett shale. That was just the beginning.
Multiple micro seismic mapping jobs were carried out to understand and to optimize
field development in the upcoming years.
Map view of microseismicity recorded in 2000 during an early hydraulic-fracture
stimulation of the Barnett
In October 2009, Pinnacle provided FracSeis micro-seismic mapping services during
the hydraulic fracture stimulation of the horizontal well (A-7455) located in Christian
County, Kentucky. The well was drilled transverse (perpendicular to the expected
fracture azimuth) in the objective New Albany shale and completed as an
uncemented lateral with a series of open hole packers and sliding sleeves. It was
stimulated for gas production using eight nitrogen assisted hydraulic fractures with
a minimal quantity of nitrified ClH in front of each stage and no proppant.

Micro-seismic side-view of single horizontal well in New Albany shale

In July 2010, two parallel horizontal wells (B-18 and B-21) in McLean County, KY
were drilled transverse (perpendicular to the expected fracture azimuth) in the
objective New Albany shale and completed with open hole packers isolating
individual portions of each wellbore. The pair of wells was stimulated for gas
production using 18 hydraulic fractures in a simul-frac process, whereby nine
adjacent stages were sequentially pumped in each wellbore with two separate
fracturing fleets at approximately the same time. The fracturing fluid was a 92 – 99
% quality of N2 in water. 30/80 light weight proppant was used with concentrations
that went from 0.05 ppa to 0.25 ppa.

Micro-seismic mapping of both horizontal wells using Simulfrac technique

In Argentina, the first recording of micro-seismic mapping was performed in July
2008 in a vertical well in the Lajas formation in the Cupen Mahuida area of Loma La
Lata, Neuquén Basin in the province of Neuquén. Despite some restrictions with
respect to the vertical positioning of the geophones in the monitor well, it was
possible to record micro-seismic events in 5 out of 6 fracture treatments, with good
quality data being gathered during stages 4 to 6. The same year Total, carried out a
micro seismic mapping job on the well AP-210 where three hydraulic fractures were
pumped. One observation well and a surface array were used to monitor the seismic
events. In February 2014, on the horizontal well SR-1005h drilled and completed by
Total in Vaca Muerta, 6 frac stages were pumped which were monitored for micro
seismic events with a downhole array of sensors and a surface array.
Appendices:
Appendix nº 1 – Baker Oil Tools and Halliburton Timeline
Appendix nº 2 – Barnett Shale Timeline
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