Slant hole completion test (1991) sidetrack as built'' report

During the summer of 1990, a slant hole test well, funded by the US Department of Energy, was drilled to 9,466 ft to evaluate the effectiveness of directional drilling in the tight, naturally fractured gas sands and coals of the Mesaverde Group. The surface location of the SHCT No. 1 is 700 ft south of the DOE Multiwell Experiment (MWX) site in Section 34, T6S, R94W, Garfield County, Colorado, approximately 7.5 miles west of Rifle. Mechanical problems following cementing of a production liner resulted in loss of the completion interval, and operations were suspended. In early 1991, DOE decided to sidetrack the hole to permit production testing of the lost interval. The sidetrack was designed to parallel the original wellbore, but to be drilled 1,000 ft to the east to minimize the chances of encountering formation damage from the original hole. The sidetrack, like the original hole, was to intersect the paludal lenticular sands and coals at 60{degrees} and to penetrate the underlying Cozzette sand horizonally. The sidetrack was spudded May 12, 1991. After re-entering the well in late 1991, early production testing of the Cozzette showed that the 300 ft of in-pay horizontal hole can produce at rate 5 to 10 times higher than vertical wells in the same area. This report contains the geological summary and sidetrack drilling operations summary.