Drilling fluids touched just about everything in the
drilling process.
We're here to d the drilling process and
drilling fluid concepts
to provide a deeper understanding of our industry.
In each episode, we'll share information, talk to
interesting people and maybe share a few stories
along the way. Welcome to the flow line.
A production of Aes drilling fluids, brought to
you by Matt Off ba and Justin Goatee.
Everybody, welcome back. We are here in the
studio.
Ready to record an amazing episode as always,
Matt. How are you doing today? I'm doing
pretty good. Good. Pretty good. We'll say. Good.
You know, I always wonder when you ask
someone how they're doing. If you were to
get it an... I'm not to say that
wasn't an honest answer, but there's people I
ask how they're doing, and I can tell
that things are not great, but people just
automatically say, oh, good. How are you? Have
you ever had someone actually, like, when you
asked them how they're doing, they've actually unloaded
on how they're truly doing. I have. And
I mean, I think that's the hard part
is, like, there's sort of this thing where
it I was like, hey,
I didn't come here to hear about, like,
whatever horrible thing happened in your life. I
was just... Trying to be say, hello. You
know what I mean? Like I think it's
hard because it's, like, do you want me
to be honest
or
just like, can we just pass by, you
know, and exchange
pleasant trees? Yeah. You know?
It must be a North America thing because
in Canada too. Same thing, hey, I was
going good. How are you good. Awesome. Well,
see you later. But I wonder if, like,
other cultures
if they greet someone in the same manner.
Like, you've worked overseas yourself. Like, is that
the same?
To some degree, I would say that, like,
you know, work at the former Soviet Union,
there was a lot of, like, you don't
kind of make eye contact sort of, like,
you don't just say hello to people passing
by. Right. You know? But I also worked
in the
you know, in the business environment where it
was very western eyes where you'd look, you
know, shake hands and... Yeah. But you certainly
wouldn't talk about anything private,
especially in Asia,
And in fact, if you did start to
bring it up, they'd kinda be like hey
this is getting a little, like, police stop.
Right. It was not a cultural norm. But
1 thing I did find is that if
it was somebody you did know, it was
way more...
I mean, not to say we don't do
this with, like, dear friends or what have
you. But just people. I felt so appreciated
many times. It was... If you didn't know
them, they didn't really make eye contact. But
if you knew him and saw and they're,
like, they come up and, you know, give
you a big handshake. Across your arm and
pull you over, give you a hug or...
Yeah. You know, it was, like, way more
affectionate and like, oh, I'm so glad to
see you and you're, like,
Okay. I'm here to buy bread. Like, hey,
you know?
And it just, like, you know, that vibe
is contagious though. Was it was kinda cool.
So... Yeah. But it was also like, some
of it was kinda cold
in that, like, you didn't just look somebody
eye and say, hello. Right. You know, that's
fascinating. I haven't done a lot of world
traveling, but I often wonder, and I'm not
gonna call this individual out, but anytime I
ask... Them how they're doing.
I can tell whether they're not doing great,
but they'll, like, forcefully say they're doing good.
It's... And I don't wanna cry, but It's
like, just tell me you're not doing great,
and then, you know, we can talk about
it. I don't know. Hey anyway, she's a
close family member of mine, which is why
I asked. Not my wife. But okay. Yeah.
Anyway, with that being said, Matt, you mentioned
something in 1 of the recent episodes you're
telling what the Astro and how you're fired
up and you couldn't sleep. And it reminds
me of this last weekend. But I may
have mentioned on the podcast. My daughter's e
to softball right now. Summer are league stuff.
And they had a determined this weekend, and
they had 4 games.
Or story 3 games on Saturday and 5
games on Sunday, which went up until, like,
09:00 at night. And it was like brilliant
intense and like, like, you know, you're up
there and it's you're 1, you're cheering and
it's close games whatever and, you know, they
get to the championship, and I didn't realize,
like, the amount of adrenaline that gets pumping
through the veins because I was so wired
up until about 2 in the morning. And
every time I closed my eye, like, we
got home it was like, 11 on a
Sunday. Gran were exhausted and I was like,
oh, and I'm gonna have a good sleep
because I'm just wiped after being out in
the fields all weekend, but, you know, it's
crazy because you... Yeah. I was just sad
there. And it was almost like, I was
I had, like, anxiety. For hours laying in
bed. And I'd close my eyes and all
I could see was the day softball stuff
happening and cheering and for I was like,
I might as well have just stayed there
for another few hours and just played catch
or something because, yeah, It it like, really
had you going. And I know... So James
our presence dig into the astro. And He'll
say sometimes on a closed game and he
can't sleep that night because of the adrenaline,
but... Yeah.
Anyway, yeah. It can be intense. Do you
find you get wrapped up in the emotion
of the game? Oh, yeah. I mean, like,
so the 20 17 World series, like, you
know, people like, oh my gosh. You know,
first Astro world series. Like, how do he
feels like, yeah I frankly got so anxious
and was, like, confronted by people
that, like, game 5, I took Night will
and went to sleep. Like, I couldn't handle
it. Yeah. And so we were like, you
didn't catch the, like, 1 of the best
world series games in baseball history, and I
was like, no. I just couldn't. Yeah. Like,
I just couldn't.
That's like, my wife woke me up to
tell me they came back in 1. No
way. Yeah. I usually dig it anymore.
Yeah Man. That's fine. Well talking about exciting
things happening, not in baseball or softball, but
in the world of drilling, Matt, we've had
this thing over the last I would say
couple years that sort of made their way
back. It's not new, but it seems to
be gaining a lot of traction. And we
talked about it, I think maybe a while
back in an episode, but
there continues to be more and more news
about it. More operators are considering or are
doing them, and that's horseshoe wells. You could
say we've horse back to this subject. The
boom.
You tee that up. I was I was
waiting for a pause. So I could work
that in here. Thank you. That was good.
That was good. Yeah. Again, it's... When you
look at just the overall length of the
well, it's nothing special but when you look
at the well profile, it's... Certainly unique. And
I think it'd be good to revisit and
talk about the importance from a flu perspective.
What do you think? Yeah. And, you know,
we did this not that long ago, but
I think 1 of the interesting things was
we talked about before. You know, they were
drilled with little fan fare. You know, even
talking to some of our guys like, hey,
I noticed we've drilled a couple of these.
They're like,
Yeah. You know. But now we sort of
have this sample space where, in, almost 50
of these things as far as we know
have been drilled.
And so this is becoming, like, part of
your business norm. And I think vital energy
said they were gonna drill, like, 42 of
these.
Coming years, you know, Mat has put a
lot on how it's, you know, really helped
their economics. Yeah. And so all that being
said,
there may be a few more lessons learned.
You know, I feel a lot more informed
on the subject.
And so it's like, okay. Let's run through
this again with just kind of a it'll
probably say a lot of the same things
as we did last time, but maybe with
more information a fresh set of eyes. Yeah.
So... No. And and perhaps if you... You're
most recent listener, or maybe you've been on
1 of these and you'd like to share
a story about how well it went or
something unique that happened that was unexpected. But
I think it's important to acknowledge, like, again,
the sample size, the amount of data points.
Obviously, we're trying to improve as an industry
to how we drill them. I would imagine
the length of each leg is going to
be extended just like we're seeing 3 and
4 mile lateral is now being pushed not
only in the northeast, but in the Permian,
and in Bak.
But again, I think it's important to also
state back when we were talking about, I
think the Eagle Ford and maybe, you know,
small sample size in the permian have done
it. But now, you know, you're looking at
Permian, Eagle Ford, Haynes, Uti Marcel is Bak.
A lot of these major basins are either
planning or are currently doing them. So it's
not just specific to 1 basin isn't it?
No. I mean, I think the templates been
laid out and so now it's just if
I have an area where
2 1 mile lateral or whatever,
really aren't that economic, but Yeah. 1, 2
mile lateral is. I'll do it. Economically. And
so why is it important for production and
well economics just in general. You look at
the acreage maps of all these operators and
you see like, they're squares. Right? And they're
not necessarily contiguous squares everywhere. And depending on
whether it's legacy stuff or, you know, how
everything dole out,
there are these areas where it could be
in very good rock,
but a 1 mile lateral is not really
all that attractive economic. Let alone, let's say
the 4 you would drill on the pad,
you know, to get what you would typically
get in such a small space, you gotta
prepare that location. You gotta do all these
other things. So the idea of what if
I eliminate half my surface locations, like or
a half my surface, you know, my surf
and intermediate sections. Yeah. And get all this
in
with a rig that is more than capable
to your point. If it can drill 3
or 4 miles, why can't it drill to
with a big bend. You know? So, basically,
you look at your map and you say,
there's good rock here, and I have a
new way to approach it that makes more
sense. The reason I left it there was
because it didn't when it was just a
bunch of 1 mile lateral.
And so, you know, And I think, look,
if this is a me second type thing,
a lot of production data is being made
available.
And in effect, what you're hearing is,
the decline rates are the same. You know,
the production per lateral foot is exactly what
you would hope for. Yeah. So the big
bend isn't really affecting anything.
You know, relative to drilling a full 2
mile out, you're only losing about 200 feet.
And, you know, there been a few of
these economic
evaluation say, you know, according to operators are
getting rate of returns that are increasing by
25 to 40 percent versus the alternative. Which
pretty big jump up. Right? It's huge. Yeah.
And so, you know, you have that element
of, okay. I wanna get to this rock,
just haven't drilled it yet. The original case
history is... From Shell, look at the Journal
Petroleum technology and they kind of talk about
it, but they had crazy losses on an
intermediate and in effect, they couldn't... Drill that
location, but right, like, classic Permian behavior,
you get your intermediate down no problem right
next to it. Yeah. And now you say,
okay. Well,
if I could go get some of that
rock that I can't get, you know, from
the
location I lost.
Well, so, you know, hook back around. And
so I think they're sort of from a
well planning economics perspective,
the production strategy, and then there's the, like,
sort of economic recovery.
So let's pretend It was a 2 mile
or a 3 mile lateral and
you lose part of location Do you say,
well, let's bust a Hue and you know,
we won't go all the way back, but
let's drill another mile back into some rock
we we're gonna get. Right. So it's it's
sort of opens up a playbook to,
minimize or reduce risk or reduce some losses
there. Yeah. Those are really good points. And
I'm curious I know you haven't marked. And
I've had this question asked me even just
internally is you know, curious about the f
design. Can you share whether you f the
whole thing? Just parts of it?
Talk a little bit about that.
So normally, you're close up against your lease
line on, you know, the terminology
that John He who's kind of, you know,
kind of a Sm on the Cc presented...
I attended a lunch in that the 80
and Sp put on. It was really insightful,
and some of my, you notes are from
some things he said. Okay. And he's got
a website u drill dot com that you
should check out if you wanted know more
and he put some stuff on Linkedin as
well. But that being said, you're pretty close
to your lease line. So you're probably gonna
have 7 or 800 feet on that bend,
which, you know, if you're breaking down, like,
since this is of audio.
So you get your vertical hole, beat You
have the curve like normal. You have your
outgoing leg, and then the turn is a
big u turn part, and then you have
your return leg, So just from a terminology
perspective. So the turn part,
you're not gonna f. You're probably so close
to your lease line to get. All the
other rock that if you were to f,
you would be fracking into the neighbors. Mh
So that's something to consider. And then the
legs might be, you know, a thousand 2000
feet apart, you've gotta accommodate your kinda dog
like severity. Where does this make sense or
I'm not trying to make too hard of
a turn where the wells at risk.
But reasonable enough that I get, you know,
the f exposure I'm looking towards. Right. So
I think you just mentioned it how far
apart of these lateral?
Roughly. 1000 to 2000 feet seems to be
typical. 1000 being pretty low, I think I
think to give it, say, like 1200 to
1500 is probably more normal is what it
looks like. Yeah. I saw... He'd mentioned something
as high as maybe 3000 feet, which sounds
kinda crazy to me because I feel like
he... That's a very bend. Yeah. And maybe
they were trying it hour. Right? Maybe it
was 1 of those, like, Yeah. You know,
proof of concept
type things.
But, I mean, think about it. We make
really, really hard turns... To get our curve
down? Yeah. Well, why can't we do that
for our turn? Yeah. What was the... And
I know I'm asking a bunch of questions.
You may rein not know, like, on a
typical
vertical into a lot? You're looking at 10
or 12 degrees per hundred. Right? Mh You'll
give or take. I'm sure there's others. But
did they say or mention what the typical
turn rate is of these things? They did,
and I didn't write it down here. No
worries Again, just curious if anyone out there,
you know, send something like, Let us know.
Super interesting. And then what size holes are
we typically drilling Is it regular? Or do
they have to change whole sizes for this
stuff? When it's like reservoir section. So and
the interesting thing, I say is so you're
talking about, like, 8 and 3 quarter inch
all the way down to 6 and an
eighth or, you know, 6 inch size hole,
which I would implies, of course, that you're
able to use slimmer hole tools. Mh. Right?
So, I mean, most of this stuff is
on conventional motors.
This isn't even, like, hey, you gotta use
the latest and greatest Rs to pull this
off or what have you? You know, from
B perspective,
you might drill, like, your first leg, you
know, drill your first leg, come out with,
like, a... To make that... Turn that Dha,
and everything's going okay. You might finish your
return leg with it or come out and
swap out. But most of these are done
on motors. But you can do it on
a... I mean, a rover steer obviously, has
a number of advantages. Yeah. But, yeah. So
it's going back to, I think, you know,
kinda talking before this.
These are different, but they're not, like, from
our engineering playbook.
I don't really think we've broken any limits
or boundaries that we didn't... You know, we
don't have invent anything new to do this.
Right. We're taking what we know in a
couple different places and just merging it together.
Yeah. So it's not... Yeah. Like you said,
you're not doing anything.
Revolutionary. You're essentially drilling
straight, lateral, turning, and drilling more straight lateral,
which we do every single day. Yeah. So
Well, let's talk, you know, this is a
drilling fluids podcast. So let's talk a little
bit about mud and sort of the fluid
considerations, which again, we've alluded to. There's not
a hole.
You know, it's not very magical, but I
think it's important to consider because it is
a little bit unique from a couple of
different standpoint. Yeah. I mean, the the first
thing is mud weight. Right? And think about
this, you making so many... You're intersecting,
like, bedding planes in so many different ways
And so many different stress planes that... But,
like, if you look at a geo mechanical
model that normally says, like, hey, Drill in
this direction and you won't have any c.
Well, if you look at that model, you
would be drilling in probably the whole 360
degree graph.
Right? I mean, because
you've got that curve and even it's not
like, oh, well, don't worry. It's just a
short section. It's like, no. You have this
massive curve area that you've gotta work your
way through.
And in all likelihood,
you're going to intersect that as you build
and come back in a way that could
result in some
instability. So...
You are very likely going to use a
mud weight that is considerably higher
than what you would drill at your typical
lateral in the exact same rock. Okay. And
so I think airing on the side of
higher mud weight if you can. I think
testing out your shoe to make sure that
you can or figure out what your limit
is. Yeah. You know, I'm getting ahead of
myself. I've already cited 1 good resource, which
was at u drill dot com. But the
Chesapeake S paper was really good. They had
some instability. They had to wait up.
They do a great. It's an engineer's paper.
I really enjoyed it. Okay. But, yeah, Expect
to use a higher mud weight. And then,
you know, so we're still in the Mud
story,
like losses.
Alright? So we use our higher weight than
we expected now we go on losses.
Why could this be so much worse for
us?
Well, if you're trying to do all these
turns with a mud motor,
you're sliding a lot. Mh. Which means you're
not rotating the pipe. And now you're trying
to circulate cutting out
in a situation where you're not able to
rotate very much and you've lost half your
flow energy. Right. Right? So it could be
very difficult if you have serious losses
to do very well on that turn. Right.
You know? If you can get through the
turn and then get back... On, your return
leg you can go back to rotating at
least. Mh. Right? But in the midst of
all of that directional work,
on a conventional motor
that could really undermine your efforts. Right. So
losses are a big deal and think about
the combination of you're probably to hire mud
weight. And losses could be a lot worse
than in a typical lateral.
So we just wanna have our act together
on that. Yeah. You know, that may be
a good, you know, a good Fit
it may be even, you know, going higher,
like, extending your window, talking to your subsurface
people,
figuring out how high you could go on
leg wait, high how high you should go.
And really nailing that down.
So those 2 things are sort of hand
in hand. And then the last thing I
had it right down here is torque.
And I think in the grand scheme of
things, we're only talking about a 2 mile
lateral. Like, yes, it's got a lot of
bend. I get it. So you got a
lot of contact surfaces and everything, but you're
well within rig capabilities,
but I would suggest you do some torque
and drag modeling.
This is different. Right? Like, and, you know,
match it to what you see.
But this is mechanical stuff, you know,
think about even, like,
as opposed to a, you know, a bent
motor sub,
you know, with a rotary steer system and
all those turns, like, you're gonna wanna ring
that thing out. Like, if you're engaged and
have to come in and out all those
turn, like, your trips might be real tight.
Yeah. And then, you know, as goes as
far as getting casing to bottom,
once again, you know, do your engineering, check
model, but... You probably wanna be able to
rotate, and you're probably gonna float it in.
But we float our casing in all the
time, and I think sometimes we have to
rotate it. So... Yeah. Continually allowing yourself to
have the capabilities to do that. Yeah. And
everything else should probably be
hopefully just fine. Right?
Do you think there's ever... Would there other
be a case for an s shape well?
And could we do it? Which way is
the... So you're coming down so instead of
going so you'd go down, you drill your
first Lateral come around. Do your second 1.
Mh. And then instead of stopping at the
u. You can... So we come back. Oh,
come back.
Just I mean, never say ever. Like, from
an engineering person... You know, obviously, there was...
Maybe he's not a use case per s
just because,
again, I'm no land guy.
Well, look. Let's say you were gonna drill
3 u shaped wells, and instead, you drilled
2 s shaped wells.
Right. Because, ultimately, the biggest bang for your
buck is eliminating
surface and intermediate. Right? So you're getting 2
lateral. Not for the price of 1. But
whatever... For all extensive purposes. So, you know,
if you were just keep zigzag back and
forth until you're, like, mechanically just can't do
it anymore, just wonder if you started on
1 side of of your acreage and just
kept zigzag, you know, I don't know. I
mean, from a friction perspective, you have to
think about, like,
You know, will production, Like, you are gonna
have
issues with flow, like, maybe do it in
gas well first. Right. I think that's probably
a, you know, a healthy limit,
along with. Yeah. Eventually, you just got so
many contact surfaces your mess. But... Yeah. You
know, in the Sp lunch and, he pointed
out he's like look at the Dj they
did about mile on a half, u shaped
lateral.
So
imagine
it's not just limited these single mile, but
with lease lines and stuff, it sort of
makes sense,
Yeah. But I think this stuff will continue
to evolve. Yeah. So I think, you know,
are you hoping they're to, like, spell your
name or you?
Yeah.
I just... I always like to think of
what's next, You know what I mean? And
if we can do this, what else can
we do?
Anyway, just a thought exercise, But a cool
conversation nonetheless the. It's need to see it.
Again, more companies are talking about it. I
have the pleasure speaking with a customer who's
a know, made and kind of, you know,
on the point of, it's different, but it's
not unique to what we do on a
daily basis. Their management team has been bugging
him, and he just said, look, folks. Like,
this is nothing special. We can do it.
Here's the engineering. Here's the data that proves
that we can do it. You know, let's
put it in the plans. And just stop
bugging me because it is doable. And here's
the cost, and I can almost narrow it
down to the dollar because this is things
have been done. So... Yeah. But again, it
cool to talk about and and from a
fluids perspective, just understand some of the things
like we alluded to mud weight losses and
torque. You know, you wanna make sure you
got good mud the hole and You know,
I don't think any of these have been
done on water based, but the ones that
I'm familiar with have been done on oil
base. Yeah. No It. That's kind of interesting
because somebody asked that at the luncheon in.
I can't see why you wouldn't. Or why
you couldn't. It may go back to, look,
you know, from a torque perspective and sort
of what we know.
But like many things, I encourage, like, get
this stuff nailed down and comfortable with any
of the nuances
and then take a little bit of risk
to lower cost, And so who knows? Maybe
in a couple months from now, we'll we'll
be talking about drilling these with Brian. You
right. Yeah. Yeah. Again, if anyone out there
has any stories or experience drilling these that...
They'd like to share with us. Please reach
out. And again, a big... I don't know
if mister John He listens to this, but
a big shout out to mister He. He's
he's put out a lot of work and
effort into... Just the research side it in
the engineering side and has put out a
lot of good information on Linkedin and obviously,
his website. So encourage you to check that
out. Just And with that said, everyone, Man
had anything else? No. We'll see you later.
Really. Really hitting it today. Love it. Take
care everyone. Cheers. Thanks for listening. Please tune
in next week for another exciting episode of
the flow line.
And remember, may your returns always be full
and your trips always smooth.
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The program is for informational purposes only and
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