Drilling Practice
Flywheel utilizes a multi-lateral development approach to improve reservoir access while minimizing surface infrastructure. By drilling multiple horizontal laterals from a single wellbore, this model supports efficient capital deployment, reduces surface footprint, and enables a disciplined, repeatable development program.
What is Multi-lateral Drilling?
01
Improved Reservoir Access
Multi-lateral drilling allows multiple horizontal branches to be drilled from a single wellbore and multiple wells to be developed from the same surface pad. This approach increases reservoir contact while allowing operators to respond to geological variability in real time, helping target higher-quality reservoir intervals and unlocking opportunities that were previously uneconomic.
02
Lower Development Costs
Developing several multi-lateral wells from the same pad allows surface infrastructure, roads, and facilities to be shared across multiple wells, reducing duplicated infrastructure. Multiple laterals can also be drilled from a single wellbore, minimizing repeated drilling from surface to the reservoir. Advances in drilling technology have further enabled longer reach horizontals, increasing the proportion of revenue-generating meters drilled within the zone of interest and lowering overall development costs.
03
Repeatable Development
Multi-lateral drilling allows operators to establish standardized well designs and drilling programs that can be repeated across large areas of the reservoir. This repeatability improves planning, reduces technical uncertainty, and allows development programs to scale efficiently as more wells are drilled.
04
Faster Development Cycle Times
Advances in drilling technology, standardized well designs, and multi-well pad development have significantly shortened development timelines. In many developments, wells can move from spud to onstream in less than one month, accelerating production while improving capital turnover and allowing operators to respond more quickly to market conditions.
05
Reduced Surface Footprint
By concentrating development activity on fewer surface locations, multi-lateral drilling can reduce the number of well pads, access roads, and facilities required to develop a given area. Centralized development not only minimizes land disturbance but also simplifies field operations by reducing the number of sites that must be monitored and serviced. Fewer locations can also reduce travel requirements for operators and service providers, improving operational efficiency while supporting enhanced field safety.