horizontal drilling
Lateral underground excavation
Horizontal drilling is a technique for extracting oil or gas by drilling down vertically, then turning to continue laterally through rock formations.
This allows access to reserves spread across wide areas from a single surface location, and makes hydraulic fracturing (fracking) economically viable by exposing more of the oil- or gas-bearing layer to the wellbore.
- frackingExtracting gas via pressure
- oil extractionRemoving petroleum from reservoirs
- coal seamsSubterranean fuel deposits
- aquifersWater-bearing rock formations
- completionAct of finishing
geothermal energy · caprock · perforation · casing · carbon footprint reduction · stratigraphy · public health concerns · smart sensors · fault lines · hydraulic · methane emissions · reservoir · pipeline · rig · oilfield · shale · underground · directional
- Frackinghydraulic fracturing, fracking, refracturing, shale gas, shale
- directional drillingtrajectory, inclination, azimuth, drop rate, steering
- drillingdriller, bore hole, auger, bit, rotary
- petroleum engineeringoil recovery, permeability, porosity, wettability, drawdown
- hole makingboring, reaming, punching, piercing, trepanning
- oilfieldscrude oil, oil wells, pump jacks, pumpjacks, fracking