In October, an oil company from Salt Lake City drilled a well in Cowley County, six miles northwest of Winfield. The news? This was a horizontal well, one that reportedly produced more than 1,000 barrels of oil a day from a field that had been pumping an average of only about 50 barrels a day from eight traditional wells.
The Cowley County well is a dramatic example of the way horizontal drilling -- a technique developed during the past decade that is becoming more common in Kansas - may change oil exploration and production in the state. That's the assessment of petroleum geologists at the Kansas Geological Survey, based at the University of Kansas.
According to Survey geologist Timothy Robert Carr, the Cowley County well is one of about 50 horizontal wells that have been drilled in Kansas. More are on the way, he says, and they could slow and maybe even reverse declines in the state's oil production.
"If they work in Kansas, lots and lots of these wells will be drilled," Carr said. "They could recover significant amounts of oil."
For more than a hundred years, traditional oil wells have been drilled vertically, straight down into the ground. When these wells reach an oil-bearing rock formation, oil drains into the well from the surrounding rock. A horizontal well begins like a traditional vertical well, at least until it nears the oil-bearing rock bed. At that point, sophisticated technology is used to turn the drill bit and drive the well horizontally. The drill then chews its way laterally along the targeted rock layer.
Traditional vertical wells drain oil from a single hole poked through a rock layer. But horizontal wells encounter several hundred, maybe several thousand, feet of a rock bed, allowing them to drain substantially more oil from the rock.
"This is technology that was originally applied primarily in Canada, in North Dakota and in some fields in Texas," said Survey researcher Paul M. Gerlach, who has studied Kansas rock formations that might make particularly good targets for horizontal drilling.
Most of the state's horizontal wells have been drilled in southwestern Kansas, where the target horizon is 4,000 to 5,000 feet deep.
Horizontal drilling is challenging, however.
Wells drilled by that method typically cost two or three times as much to drill as traditional, vertical wells.
"Horizontal drilling could change the face of oil production in Kansas," Carr said. "It could bring on substantial reserves relatively quickly."