Multilateral Well Technology
A Literature Review
Introduction
A Multilateral well is a single well with one or more than one vertical, inclined or horizontal branches radiating from the main borehole or "Mother wellbore."
A Multilateral well may be an Exploration well, an infill development well or reentry in to an existing well. It may be a simple as vertical wellbore, which is sidetracked or as complex as horizontal, extended-reach well with Multiple Lateral or Sub Lateral branches.
Drilling, completing and later reentering wells with multiple branches to improve production while saving time and money are becoming commonplace, but complications remain, as do the risks and chances of failure. Exisiting techniques have been applied and fresh approaches are being developed to overcome technical hurdles, establishing new standards and a specialized vocabulary for Multilateral well types and applications.
First Multilateral Well
The world's truly Multilateral well was drilled in 1953 "Simply called 66/45" with Turbo Drills in Bashkira Field near Basjkortostan, Russia. This well ultimately had nine lateral branches from a main borehole that increased exposure to the pay zone by 5.5 times and production by 17-fold, yet the cost was only 1.5 times that of a conventional well. It was the world's first truly multilateral well, although rudimentary attempts at multilaterals had been made since in 1930s.
This first Multilateral well was accomplished by a Soviet Drilling Engineer, named Alexander Mikhalovich Grigoryan. Grigoryan was actually inspired by the theoretical work of American Scientist L. Yuren, who maintained that increased production could be achieved by increasing bore diameter in the production zone, Grigoryan took the theory a step further propelled branching bore hole in the producing zone to increase surface exposure, "Just as a tree's root extended in exposure to the soil."
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