American Oil and Gas Reporter - November 2020 - 60

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Frac Facts:

As bleak as Q2 and Q3 were for oil
and gas activity-the Marcellus and Utica
notwithstanding-it was during those
dark days that three different operators
flashed the undeniable technical brilliance of an Appalachian industry that
is redefining what's possible in extended-reach operations.
First, an independent completed what
at the time was the longest horizontal
ever drilled in the Marcellus: 19,625
feet of perforated lateral and 27,692 feet
of total MD. However, that record stood
for only a couple months. As summer
turned to fall, another independent
brought in a Marcellus well with a
19,858-foot perforated lateral and total
MD of 27,423 feet. Both wells are in
Southwest Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, across the state line in
Ohio's Utica Shale play, yet another operator established a new North American
land record for total MD with a 30,746foot horizontal. Also completed in Q3,
that well had a 19,883-foot perforated
lateral section.
On each project, an HCU was called
on to perform the final critical operational
phase before turning the wells over to
production, Tourigny reports. And the
units did so with astonishing efficiency-
drilling out 100-plus frac plugs in single
bit runs with zero short trips required to
sweep the hole-under live well conditions
with pressure and friction progressively
intensifying as the milling assembly

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60 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

As nightmarish as Q2 and
Q3 were for oil and gas activity in U.S. shale basins-
the Marcellus and Utica
notwithstanding-it was during those dark days that
Northeast operators flashed
the undeniable technical
brilliance of an Appalachian
industry that is redefining
what's possible in extended-reach operations with
three record-setting wells
in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

moved farther out into the laterals with
each successive plug.
" In all three of these record-setting
wells, the HCUs drilled out the frac plugs
using one bit in a single trip and ran production pipe in the required wells exactly
as planned without encountering any operational issues or recording any health,
safety quality and environment incidents, "
he summarizes.
Engineering Challenges
Including the three latest extendedreach trendsetters, Marcellus and Utica
operators now have drilled and completed
a total of eight laterals in the 20,000-foot
range and four wells with total MDs of
30,000-plus feet, setting one record after
another in the process. Deep Well Services'
HCUs have performed the drill-outs successfully under live pressurized conditions
on all those wells.
" The performance of the HCUs validates the design of the equipment components and the operational procedures
developed initially for Purple Hayes and
optimized with each new super lateral, "
Tourigny relates. " The right equipment
and procedures not only ensure that total
depth can be reached safely and quickly
on 30,000-plus foot MD wells and
20,000-plus foot laterals, but that it can
be done in one trip using one bit to save
time and cost. "
The engineering challenges for operating under pressures as great as 8,000-

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American Oil and Gas Reporter - November 2020

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