At a time when squeezing out more oil and gas for less money is a priority for upstream producers, longer laterals are giving a competitive edge in unconventional basins in the US, producing more hydrocarbons per foot drilled. Receive daily email alerts, subscriber notes & personalize your experience. Register Now Laterals – the horizontal portion of a well, – have become longer and longer in the last 15 years. Drilling out 15,000 feet, or nearly three miles horizontally reduces the number of wells companies need to drill to achieve their production goals, and does it at increasingly lower costs. As producers keep a tight rein on capital expenses to boost cash flows, they have found it unnecessary, for instance, to drill two wells to 6,000 vertical foot depths, and […]