That is interesting but in many ways evolutionary rather than...

That is interesting but in many ways evolutionary rather than revolutionary .

It's a low tech approach and probably not applicable to the specific case of the very , very thick continuously charged shale of the Bowland in Nimby UK .

Cuadrilla may wish to drill horizontal laterals at 5 or more different levels and they will want to do this with multi-lateral completions rather than 1 vertical per horizontal .

There is still not much experience of multi-lateral completions in the U.S. , even though Slumberger and others offer products . The challenge comes from making the junctions between the vertical and multiple horizontal laterals pressure tight for the extreme pressures provided by the pressure pumping frac suites .

Here is an explanation of multi-lateral completion schemes (TAML : Technological Advancement of Multilaterals)

http://petrowiki.org/Multilateral_completions

Cuadrilla will need TAML Level 5 or TAML Level 6 junctions for their pressure integrity .

Obviously if you have for example 3 laterals off a vertical well bore , there is a huge amount of money invested in a well and getting a tool stuck or another disaster towards the end of drilling and completion of such a complicated expensive well results in even more money down the drain .