Horizontal well is Rice County's firstIt arrives as interest in...

Horizontal well is Rice County's first
It arrives as interest in region's oil, gas peaks; output levels promising.
By John Green - The Hutchinson News - [email protected]

A Wichita-based oil company completed Rice County's first horizontal well on Friday, bringing the latest drilling technology into the region.

CMX, a company owned by principals Curtis Clark and Doug McGinness, drilled the well, known as the Socrates 1-H, in the established Wherry Field.

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The well is about six miles northeast of Sterling, near Saxman, in Section 10, 21 South, Range 7 West.

The well reached a total depth of 7,950 feet in just over 20 days, Clark reported. To reach that horizontal depth, the crew also drilled more than 4,000 feet at an angle.

"What we did is went down to 3,500 feet and then started building a curve," Clark said.

CMX used Kansas drilling contractor Duke Drilling Company Rig 20 on the project.

With completion of drilling Friday morning to the well's total depth, the company was installing equipment to commence underground fracturing, or fracking. The process uses pressured water and chemicals to break up the rock, in this case within the Mississippian zone, and release trapped oil and gas.

They've not yet tested the well for production levels, but "it looks good," Clark said.

The Bornholdt-Wherry field, part of the Geneseo uplift, have been producing oil in Rice County since the 1940s. The field's production was primarily played out, however, and most wells plugged, Clark said.

"We're definitely the first horizontal well in Rice County," Clark said, expressing excitement about drilling outcome and the potential for the remainder of the company's 15,000 acre holdings.

CMX is an independent oil and gas company started in 1987 by Clark and McGinness, with offices in Wichita, Hardtner and Highlands Ranch, Colo. Both men are second-generation Kansas oil producers.

"CMX has been active drilling wells in several counties in Kansas and Oklahoma," Clark stated, and "is at the forefront of bringing horizontal drilling into new and existing oil and gas fields in Kansas and Oklahoma."

"We are advocates of horizontal drilling because it lessens the environmental footprint, replacing the need for several vertical wells with a single horizontal well," he said.


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