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written by reader The “Octopus” – eco-friendlyalternative to fracking

By Nikki Odegaard, March 28, 2013

Anyone know the companies Brian Hicks is touting for Oil and Gas Trader that are using this technology – multi-well pad drilling. Sounds like a good way to go – any comments?

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jsfpswcc
Member
jsfpswcc
April 3, 2013 11:55 am

I’m not sure what company Brian Hicks is pushing, but the “Octopus” method has been around for years at least for offshore production. 35 years ago I worked my way through college working as a roughneck in the Gulf of Mexico. We drilled over 30 production wells from one platform using directional drilling. It saved Pennzoil huge bucks.

I never saw it done from a land based pad back then (Texas and Oklahoma) and wondered why it wasn’t done. Building a land based pad uses about 2 or 3 acres of land. Tearing down a rig takes a good two days and another 2 to 3 days to reset depending on how far the rig has to be moved. In some areas we would only move a mile or two from the previous location. We could have skidded the rig more or less erect to a different part of the pad and directional drilled to tap something a mile away. Pads are not expensive in the overall scope of things, but having a rig down for a week is expensive. These land based wells were not for fracking though.

These “new” fields that are being fracked are a different animal. Fracked wells do not produce for a long period of time and have to be redrilled and fracked on a fairly regular basis.

“Eco-friendly” is a misnomer. The eco-friendly part is that less land has to be consumed for pad building. And normaly after a well is drilled and put into production, the land is returned to its original state. In the LA area you can find parking lots around well heads and in TX, OK, CO and others you will find cattle grazing or crops growing within a few feet of a well head. Fracking is by no means eco-friendly though as each well fracked requires a huge amount of fresh water.

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stp479
Member
stp479
April 28, 2013 10:48 am
Reply to  jsfpswcc

Hi John,
Thanks for very informative post-I much enjoyed being brought back to my stint in ’82 working for Tom Brown drilling out of Midland , TX. in the patches of N.M. Anyways, sounds like a well-known method being ginned up here for potential subscribers again.

jimarb
jimarb
April 4, 2013 11:07 am

I have ask travis – who will do the rig modification to get them crawling to the next drill site ?? that might be where the money is ??? and who now has rigs that can crawl ??

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Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe
April 4, 2013 11:46 am
Reply to  jimarb

That I don’t know — the drilling rig companies are generally hurting these days because natural gas drilling is off so much, but I don’t know if there’s any competitive edge among them as regards multi-well pads or movement of rigs.

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walt
Guest
walt
April 9, 2013 10:37 pm

My guess is Surge Energy around 3 dollars and they are doing multi well drilling

Dave
Dave
April 10, 2013 1:07 pm
Reply to  walt

Surge’s share price has dropped about 2/3 in the last year.

James Mitchell
Member
James Mitchell
May 25, 2013 10:11 am
Reply to  jimarb

Kodiak oil &Gas company has a rig that can craw.

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Mark Trevithick
Guest
April 14, 2013 11:47 pm

Rig skidding and walking systems are available and are commonly supplied with state of the art rigs in the US. The better of these systems are designed to allow the rig (mast, substructure) to walk from well to well with full pipe setback and all equipment installed. Typical times for walking 25′ can be as little as an hour or two. My company designs and sells such equipment as do a number of other manufacturers – I’m clearly biased as to whose equipment is best but the technology is well in place.

sleuther
Member
sleuther
May 2, 2013 10:28 pm

Mark,
From someone in the industry, your comments would be appreciated. Is your company traded on the exchanges. And would you provide the names and or symbols of all the companies that are the leaders in this field. It would be appreciated.
Best Regards,
Roger

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Scott says:
Guest
Scott says:
May 2, 2013 11:00 pm
Reply to  sleuther

Roger,

Click on Marks name-it has an html url attached to it.

Scott

allan szamrej
Guest
allan szamrej
July 25, 2014 1:18 pm

Mark what is the name of your company, I’m t
rying to find out the name of the company in Oklahoma that is using your rigs to drill
an d saying that they can produce oil for $28 per barrel. I would like to invest in this
company but can’t get any info from anybody about them,,,,,,,Regards …Allan

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mark trevithick
Guest
July 27, 2014 3:10 pm
Reply to  allan szamrej

My company is T&T Engineering Services Inc.
Our Maverick® mast and substructures with our Lift & SlideTM rig walking system are used by Patterson UTI and by Pioneer Drilling. Both are drilling contractors and would not be expected to claim a price per barrel production cost – they are not operators.
I am not sure who you are looking for.
Regards,
Mark

mph011
Member
mph011
April 26, 2013 6:11 pm

I have not seen an answer from the Thinkolator regarding ‘Octopus Technology’ by Brian Hicks

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Dave Hughes
Member
Dave Hughes
May 4, 2013 4:37 pm

so with the octopus do they still frack the well or not . If not how do they get the oil out of the rock

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slick
Member
slick
May 14, 2013 3:12 am
Reply to  Dave Hughes

Here’s some info that will lead you to more information.
http://www.oxfordvisionaries.org/octopus-the-future-of-gas-drilling/
Cheers from AUS .

Betty Crowley
Guest
May 7, 2013 3:03 pm

Can the octopus technology be used in shallow wells…1500-2000 ft? Or is it economically not an advantage?

Morco
Guest
Morco
June 18, 2013 7:31 pm

To answer a couple of your questions: Fracking wells has been used for decades to consolidate smaller deposits into larger reservoirs where well heads have been drilled – this processes is essentially fracturing the formation and creating openings (cracks) for the oil to pool into the reservoir. Directional drilling will still be used to direct a well into the reservoir but with this method the well heads will be densely positioned at the surface (metres apart). Whether or not fracking will be used is a matter of economics, fracking is not cheap and nor is drilling a well. Drilling a well is roughly a $1M per day operation, so every day saved in moving a rig is money saved. The deposits economics will determine the viable options for extraction, and sometimes neither option is viable so that precious material is left in the ground.

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Oilfield Hobo
Guest
Oilfield Hobo
September 18, 2013 2:36 pm

$1m per day!!!! Where are you drilling and are you or your company hiring? I have been in the drilling side of the industry for over 30 yrs. There are no simple one answer questions the costs and difficulty in drilling multi-lateral wells varies by location and depth. Generally in North America operating costs range from $30k a day to $200k if you are using some of the more elaborate technologies and going deep etc.

Oilfield Hobo

High Country Mark
October 10, 2013 10:43 am
Reply to  Oilfield Hobo

Does anybody out there give a tinker’s damn about the fresh water on this small planet? We can survive without oil, albeit difficult, but we can’t survive without an adequate supply of fresh, potable water. And, once we destroy these destroy these precious aquifers, we are toast.

Keith Kohl says they’ll be drilling 33,000 new wells in the Bakken over the next 20 years. At approx. one million gallons of water per well for fracking, that’s 33 BILLION GALLONS OF FRESH WATER (and that’s just in the Bakken). Yet, no one seems overly concerned about this, except perhaps those folks living in the area who don’t have wells on their property. Hey, who cares about these little details, as long as our stocks go up. . . . right??

Show me a truly eco-friendly way to extract oil without fracking & threatening our water supplies, and I’ll show you the next great investment opportunity. One that I could feel good about investing in.

High Country Mark.

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Gorgeous greggo
Member
October 26, 2013 10:51 am

We don’t have any water problems in “Dakota” “high country Mark”we take extensive precautions to protect our resources’ so loosen up your belt buckle and smoke another one of those medical miracles!

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High Country Mark
October 26, 2013 4:23 pm

I’m assuming Gorgeous greggo lives on land that is being fracked, and is getting his drinking water from a well within a half mile of the nearest drill site. Also, I’d be interested to know what the extensive precautions are, that are being taken to protect our precious water resources from any damage due to fracking.

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lakejg
Member
lakejg
December 5, 2013 3:21 pm

I live on land that has been fracked. Our house water well is within 1/4 mile of the O&G well site. We have had absolutely “NO” problems.
Devon is the Operator and HP drilled the well. The bottom of our water sand formation is at 40 feet with 37 feet of water sand and the horizontal is at approx. 11,000 feet. What is this imaginary problem you’re screaming about Chicken Little ????
Oh, I almost forgot, I tested our water (in OKC at the State Water Resources Board) both before and after “Fracking” and the results were the same our water has not been harmed. Water zones in OK are concrete & steel cased. Let me repeat we have NOT had any water problems from fracking here. (Ok Canna Woodford)
What we did have a problem with is oil field service trucks dumping their disposal loads on the public roads. That is a sure way to contaminate a water formation. We have stiff fines along with local farmers and people reporting any abuses to the county officials. Cell phones take wonderful pics of illegal dumping !

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