USA Department of Energy’s Microhole Research and Design Program Yielding Promising New Tools

01.03.2007

New technology being developed under the U.S. Department of Energy’s ambitious two-year-old Microhole Initiative is already yielding new tools perched on the edge of commercialization.

 

Some of these tools, designed to drill ultrasmall-diameter natural gas and oil wells, have been successfully fieldtested in real-world drilling conditions and await a final decision in 2007 for full-scale commercialization. Other microhole projects are wrapping up and will soon move into the field-test stage.

 

Microhole technology, by virtue of its ability to dramatically reduce drilling costs, risks, and environmental impacts, could change the way America’s oil and natural gas wells are drilled.

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