Canada once led the charge in horizontal drilling-has it lost its edge?

摘要

It's difficult to overstate the impact horizontal drilling - particularly when combined with hydraulic fracturing - is having on the North American oilpatch. Key to opening up prolific shale gas plays over the last decade, the technology has more recently led to a revival in conventional oil plays once considered played out.By boring sideways through a reservoir rather than stabbing vertically though it at a single point, it's easy to see how horizontal drilling can so much more effectively drain a not-very porous gas-charged rock. But to master the tight steering of a wellbore drilling hundreds of metres underground and accurately thread it through the target reservoir can be another matter entirely.