OCTOPUS

OCTOPUS is a technology which will lead to the development of an economical, fast and environmentally sustainable alternative to fracking. Fracking is an effective but controversial technology which uses hydraulic stimulation to boost productivity of oil or gas wells, and is currently used in 160,000 wells, worldwide. The technology is surrounded by environmental, economic and political argument and there is rising concern over its use of billions of gallons of clean water which becomes polluted and is injected under pressure into the ground, a practice which is now known to trigger earthquakes. OCTOPUS technology will make it possible to drill simultaneously a large number of ‘laterals’ (these emerge from a vertical or horizontal well bore) which will help to achieve a well productivity increase of 2 to 10 times and will enable wells to be completed 40 to 80 days sooner than existing multi-lateral well completion technologies. This project will substantially reduce the commercial and technical risks in future development stages and will ultimately enable the UK to become a world technology leader in sustainable shale gas, tight gas and heavy oil extraction by SAGD