RE: Drilling Update and Acquisition28 Jul 2021 14:52
S.T. Horizontal is fraught with potential issues, the ROP will likely be much reduced. There are risks of stuck pipe, inability to keep the well clean from mud/cuttings, so to enable the mud to do its work and to stop the drill string jamming against one side of the hole, the speed /rate of penetration is reduced. They will prolly have centralisers fitted to the drill pie to keep it away from the wellbore to some extent particularly near the drill bit to give the mud a chance to remove the cuttings and keep the bit from damage.
Would not be surprised to see this section taking longer than the vertical section so hopefully panic won't set in amongst the invested community if we get to another 10 days or more without the TD rns. Might be wrong of course and they may have methods available that allow them to Horse through it. Have been on the drill floor where each +/- 10m section of DP took an entire 12 hr shift to run, therefore ROP was just 1.2m/hr. This was unusual, but the point is, it's not impossible. Driller seems completely competent here so no worries.
Back to the day job.