“We’d seen in the coal business the underground in-seam drilling of horizontal holes and degasification,” Mitchell explained. “But, there was usually a lot of water involved and no way to get the water out.” Because of the company’s decades of experience in drilling water wells, Mitchell combined the vertical well with the horizontal well. Mitchell described the process, “The vertical well became the conduit for the coal mine, the gas and the water, and gave us a huge surface area. Suddenly, in areas where there wasn’t a resource, we could produce something like a million or up to 2 million a day from these Dymaxion® wells.”

The technology was put to the test in central Queensland, Australia. An Australian newspaper reported in June 2004, “In an industry where tradition plays a strong role, innovative drillers Mitchell Drilling have chalked up the 100th example of their revolutionary Dymaxion surface to in-seam (SIS) methane gas drainage hole for gas producer CH4 Limited at their Moranbah gas project.” CH4’s website spoke highly of this gas project, “The Moranbah Gas Project will utilise innovative drilling and gas extraction techniques, allowing increased potential gas yields while leaving the coal resource undamaged.”

How does this impact the industry? “We see this as revolutionary,” Mitchell cheerily remarked. “It has changed the face of CBM. It works in areas where people didn’t think it would work.” For example, the Dymaxion® drilling works in high permeability with low gas. “We can get such high gas from low gas content reservoirs, where people didn’t previously think there were reservoirs.”

It has worked in Australia, where every penny counts. “Our price may cost around $1.25 or $1.10 (US$) per mcf so they are still making reasonable profits at around 50 percent.” How will it play outside of Australia? Mitchell shot back, “If you can imagine costs at $1.25 and you’re selling it for $6/mcf, that’s some pretty good bloody profits.” Drilling at reasonable profits for $2 gas, Mitchell said, “We are keen to take this technology around the world. Even if we were to double our costs, our clients would still be extremely happy.”

USING BOTH VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL WELLS

When discussing the Dymaxion® technology with an oil and gas man, his puzzled response was, “Did I hear you right? You are using both a vertical and horizontal wells to get the gas?” There are the skeptics. “Contractors from the larger oil and gas companies came over to have a look,” Mitchell said. “Some people thought we were sliding by or sort of skimming costs.” He explained the procedure, “We have to intercept (the vertical) because we actually line up every one of our lateral wells with a slotted liner, a perforated liner. It is stacked into the vertical well, by the arrangement we’ve developed, so we know we’ve intercepted it.” Mitchell said the key is the ability to flush and know that the finds are coming out. “We can have a number of wells lined, going from one point to another,” he explained, “and we’ve got continuity of connection and flow between one well which is 1000 to 2000 meters away and the vertical well. We can flush between both.” He gave an example, “We can have three horizontals going into one vertical and two of the horizontals can be closed. Number one can be opened and flushed; then number two can be open, flushed and closed. So you have this over the 10 to 20 year life of the well.”

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