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

by Nikki Odegaard | March 28, 2013 9:05 pm

Anyone know the companies Brian Hicks[1] 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?

Endnotes:
  1. Brian Hicks: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/brian-hicks/

Source URL: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/2013/03/microblog-the-octopus-eco-friendlyalternative-to-fracking/


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

  1. jsfpswcc says:

    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.

  2. jimarb says:

    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 ??

  3. 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.

  4. mph011 says:

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

  5. Dave Hughes says:

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

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

  7. Morco says:

    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.

  8. Oilfield Hobo says:

    $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

  9. 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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