ExxonMobil Drills Well at Record Depth in Russia

Integrated energy giant ExxonMobil has announced that it has drilled a world record-setting well at the Sakhalin-1 oil project in eastern Russia, enabling the production of more energy while reducing the impact on the environment.

ExxonMobil has said that the well was drilled from land, using the world’s most powerful land-based rig and employing extended-reach technology, to a target area in the oil reservoir located under the ocean about 7 miles or 11km from shore.

The project team at Sakhalin-1, which is operated by the company’s subsidiary in Russia, Exxon Neftegas, used ExxonMobil technology to drill the Z-12 well in half the time needed by conventional technology.

ExxonMobil said that it used its Integrated Hole Quality technology to manage a broad range of well variables together with an optimization process called Fast Drill, which analyzes the amount of energy used to make the drilling process faster and more efficient.

The Z-12 well is located in the Chayvo field, which reportedly contains 17 of the world’s 30 longest extended reach drilling wells, and set a record by achieving a measured depth of 11,680 meters. This exceeds by 398 meters the prior world record set in 2007 by Exxon Neftegas Z-11 well at the Sakhalin-1 project.