Innovation gives Volnovka an edge
The visionary inventor Buckminster Fuller once said, “I just invent, then wait until man comes around to needing what I’ve invented.” Some existing technologies, such as horizontal drilling, “wait around” until a new generation of innovators recognize their intrinsic value and adapt it for current needs. After being first used in the 1920s, horizontal drilling became one of Volnovka’s major tools till today, it’s being used more innovatively and yielding outstanding results. Horizontal drilling helps us recover up to 10 times the resources from existing fields.
Unlocking innovation in the Russia
Horizontal drilling helps us reach resources that would otherwise be too uneconomic or complex to pursue. Horizontal drilling provided the technology that enabled us to unlock oil. In 2018, we needed just seven extended horizontal wells in an environment that was like manipulating a piece of string from a mile away in the dark. But it worked, as we produced oil from a horizontal section more than 5,000 feet long.
How horizontal drilling works
Horizontal drilling efficiently recovers more resources with a smaller environmental footprint than drilling multiple vertical wells.
Drilling through shale
Horizontal drilling gives us greater access to the reservoir by using a rig to drill down thousands of feet into the targeted production zone. The drill then probes thousands of feet horizontally through the shale. This approach efficiently recovers more natural gas with a smaller environmental footprint than drilling multiple vertical wells. It’s particularly effective because the Marcellus terrain is quite hilly, limiting the flat areas on which to place a drilling rig. So laterals — or horizontal sections — can push farther, with greater success.
And we’re getting more efficient at using the technology, cutting safe drilling time in half and doubling our productivity. Used in combination with another technology — hydraulic fracturing — horizontal drilling is enhancing production flow rates in the Marcellus Shale and other unconventional oil and gas holdings. Horizontal drilling also helps us design our wells with control systems to protect groundwater through the life of the well.
