THE BENEFITS OF MULTI-WELL PADS

The advantages of multi-well pads in the Canadian Energy Industry are best demonstrated by first understanding the limitations of traditional single well pads.

In the past Oil and Gas wells have been drilled utilizing a linear (vertical) extraction method. This linear method was designed to tap into a single point of a reservoir and extract the raw production. This methodology typically meant that one well was drilled per location.

Some of the initial challenges of traditional Single Well-Pad Construction:

• Lease / access road creation creates large project costs relative to expected production resulting from a single well pad scenario.
• Increased rig mobilizations / demobilizations. Rig moves are expensive and pose additional hazards to workers during assembly / disassembly and to the public during transport. This also results in further mobilizations for additional services such as well optimization, completions, flow-back, wireline and pipeline / facility contractors.
• A dedicated equipment package and additional pipeline infrastructure is required for each wellsite leading to increased capital costs, further environmental impacts, and lower ROI.

With the introduction of technologies such as Directional Drilling it became possible to access multiple reservoirs and areas from the same surface location. Directional drilling multiple wells on a single pad has enabled production companies to increase their production levels while minimizing their environmental impact.

Some of the prominent benefits of Multi-Well Pad Construction:

• Wells can be drilled beside one another to maximize exposure to the target formation, resulting in an increase in total production.
• Drilling rigs only need to be moved meters instead of kilometers to complete additional wells. Rigs are often placed on tracks / pads allowing for easier mobility around the surface locations, shortening the duration between drilling activities and creating a reduction in the labor required during moves.
• Consolidating wellheads onto a single site reduces the environmental impact of facility construction and pipeline gathering systems across an area relative to the production gained.

Utilizing Multi-Well Pads, Canada is able to efficiently and competitively gather and distribute our resources while increasing the safety of workers and our communities and reinforcing our energy industry’s world class environmental performance.