TIL that ‘TVD’ is an oil and gas sector abbreviation for True Vertical Depth, it being a reference to the distance perpendicular to the Earth’s crust from the surface to the bottom of the borehole.
I don’t think we have any idea of the true vertical depth to which we are drilling ourselves
…But, how far can we go horizontally in our pursuit of ancient sunlight that we want to burn at a rate several hundred thousand times shorter than the time it took to create?
Well, well, the smiling dudes at The Permian Basin Petroleum Magazine Association are here to tell us beneath their terrible logo that
“three miles – about 15,000 feet – began trending in 2023”
but…
“ExxonMobil needs to develop at least 4 to 5 mile laterals to get a lot of the oil they need”
@urlyman Your posts suggests a hypothesis more clearly than any podcast I’ve heard on geothermal drilling advances: O&G sector invests in geothermal drilling technology so they can advance their own access to deep reserves.
Similar to the story of a water filtration system that was purportedly developed to extract battery metal salts from solution, but was subsequently purchased by an oilfield company for cleaning up produced water.
…Dude, how big is your lateral and do you have a frac dart for “ball recovery” that can help you meet your deepest longings?
…Fun oil industry headlines highlighting the importance of “plug selection” that I didn’t expect to read today:
“Innovative plug design derisks ball recovery and screen-out operations in long laterals”
