For most of us, the game of golf is one of recovery. Whether trying to get up and down from a sand trap or get out of the trees and back to the fairway, I always seem to be trying to get back on track. In many ways, the projects we build in Alberta are much the same. They are about staying on track, recovering, and making sure we end up with a solid score.

In golf, we stand upon on a small perfectly manicured piece of real estate. We gaze out at a target we typically cannot see until we are almost on top of it and, at that point, only exists on paper. Of course, these targets are usually between 60 and 600 yards away rather than 1,300 to 3,000 yards for an oil well, but there are similarities. In each case, we cannot physically see the ultimate target, and we are relying on previously gathered data to guide us. In one case, it’s a scorecard with a map, and in the other, it is geological and seismic mapping.

In golf, we stand on a tee box and prepare to direct a 1.68 inch diameter projectile to ultimately land in a 4.25 inch diameter hole. Years ago, this projectile was made of feathers, and the “clubs” were little more than basic sticks. Technology has progressed over the years to the point where the club design can correct many player faults. This allows more and more people to “keep it in the fairway” and achieve success.

In oil and gas, we start with a four inch to 30 inch diameter rock bit and many lengths of drill string, and we are aiming for a small spot roughly 2,000 to 3,000 yards away. Things have also progressed in oil and gas. In the thermal environment reservoir, engineers evaluate various fields, delineate them with a drilling program, and then design the most efficient way to extract the bitumen. Drilling used to be done with tools hanging on a string and progressed through to rotary drilling using drill pipe and mud. Years ago, drillers would use a technique called “whipstocking” to deflect the wellbore and effect directional drilling. They would pressure one side of the bit to deflect the wellbore towards its ultimate destination. This enabled greater access to subsurface oil fields by creating more access points.

Today’s directional driller benefits from an amazing amount of technology to control the angle and direction of the wellbore. Drillers today are similar to video gamers or military drone “pilots” operating a joystick commanding millions worth of technology. It means we can drill with the least amount of surface disturbance ever, to extract the bitumen. Technology such as coiled tubing drilling has further improved the efficiency.