Drilling Down: Surge Energy’s record-breaking lateral in the Permian Basin

[Elderberry]

Houston Chronicle by  Sergio Chapa July 22, 2019

Chinese-owned Surge Energy made a small piece of history in the Permian Basin of West Texas — drilling the longest lateral for a horizontal well.

Surge recently completed a well on the company’s Medusa Unit C lease about 8 miles northeast of the Borden County town of Vealmoor. The lateral section of the horizontal well runs a record 17,935 feet underground where it targets the Spaberry formation.

Crews with Universal Pressure Pumping and GR Energy Services divided hydraulic fracturing portion of the project into 52 sections, used 2,200 pounds of sand per foot.

Formed in early 2015, Surge Energy is as a U.S. subsidiary of China-based Shandong Xinchao Energy Corp. So far this year, the Houston company has filed for 55 drilling permits from the Railroad Commission of Texas. All of the permits were for projects in the Permian Basin. All but one targeted the Spraberry formation.

More: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Drilling-Down-Surge-Energy-s-record-breaking-14106898.php

[thackney]

The lateral section of the horizontal well runs a record 17,935 feet underground

Record for the Permian.  World records are more than double.

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/longest-drilled-oil-well/

The worlds longest drilled oil well is BD-04-A, with a total length of 40,320 ft MDRT. It was completed in May 2008 by Maersk Oil Qatar and Qatar Petroleum, in the Al-Shaheen offshore oil field off the coast of Qatar. The well includes a horizontal section measuring 35,770 ft. MDRT (measured depth below rotary table).

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Typically, companies will tell you that the incremental cost to continue drilling once you are out in the lateral is low, so if your leasehold can stand it, go ahead and keep drilling until the torque begins giving you problems.

The axiom is the longer the well, the more likely it is a better well.

[Smokin Joe]

Typically, companies will tell you that the incremental cost to continue drilling once you are out in the lateral is low, so if your leasehold can stand it, go ahead and keep drilling until the torque begins giving you problems.

The axiom is the longer the well, the more likely it is a better well.

In the past, a combination of tool reliability/costs and hole problems prevented longer laterals.
You still have to get that pipe to go down the hole (and come back out), so a lot depends on hole sidewall friction, tortuosity of the hole, and the formation itself. Yes, drilling fluid is important, too.
Tools (MWD, mud motors, and bits) have become considerably more reliable, and faster penetration rates have allowed more hole to be drilled before the wellbore becomes less stable. I think a lot depends on the formation you are drilling, too. The longest Bakken lateral I worked was on a 2 1/2 section spacing, with about 11,000 ft. of lateral. The last two thousand feet took as long as the first 5,000, but that was before rotary steerable assemblies and some of the current tools (in Elm Coulee Field, Richland Co., MT), and before the Bakken boom in North Dakota got rolling.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

In the past, a combination of tool reliability/costs and hole problems prevented longer laterals.
You still have to get that pipe to go down the hole (and come back out), so a lot depends on hole sidewall friction, tortuosity of the hole, and the formation itself. Yes, drilling fluid is important, too.
Tools (MWD, mud motors, and bits) have become considerably more reliable, and faster penetration rates have allowed more hole to be drilled before the wellbore becomes less stable. I think a lot depends on the formation you are drilling, too. The longest Bakken lateral I worked was on a 2 1/2 section spacing, with about 11,000 ft. of lateral. The last two thousand feet took as long as the first 5,000, but that was before rotary steerable assemblies and some of the current tools (in Elm Coulee Field, Richland Co., MT), and before the Bakken boom in North Dakota got rolling.

The company I was with in Dunn County drilled a 15,000' lateral.  It was so easy drilling, we could have drilled more, but ran out of leasehold.

[Smokin Joe]

The company I was with in Dunn County drilled a 15,000' lateral.  It was so easy drilling, we could have drilled more, but ran out of leasehold.

There were significant advancements in tools between the time we were drilling Elm Coulee (2000-2006) and the wells I worked in Dunn County,  between 2006 and 2014. Just the reliability of MWD batteries alone had a major effect.
By then, generally, the 1280 acre spacing was pretty much standard, drilled lengthwise for roughly 9500 ft. of lateral in zone.
A lot depended on where you were. On a well in 102W (Mc Kenzie County near MonDak Field) we destroyed the bearing packs in 8 mud motors in 9500 ft. of lateral and DBR'd a couple of bits--the dolomite was silicified, and highly abrasive. I worked one in Northern Dunn County where the Middle Bakken was a pelletal limestone, not dolomite, with a chalky matrix, and that not only drilled like a dream, but made oil while we were drilling it.

All that was a far cry from the side door sub wet connect wireline systems we were using in the TMU drilling 1500 ft. laterals in the Ratcliffe in the 1990s. Times change, but the rate of development in tools and techniques was phenomenal.