Are stacked laterals simply a reporting tool to consolidate production number from multiple well bores on a singular site?
With directional drilling they can go in 4 or 8 discreet directions from a single well bore. Think three dimensionally…the shale ‘caps’ separate
the pays…vertically and horizontally and the laterals can be spaced vertically and then go 4 or 8 directions from the bore hole …so you could potentially produce from 8 different pay zones and have them isolated by shale from each other. They are doing research drilling experimenting with up to 16 levels and up to 32 laterals running in different directions.
, Reeves county, Tx 
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Hmm. Much more complex than my simple attempt at an explanation. Stacked laterals apparently are playing significantly in Apache’s efforts in the Alpine High. Just ran across the reference in a report.
The “Stacked Lateral” as I understand it is just a regulatory tool. In the past a well went straight down and you could draw a box around it and say okay, the acres in this box are allocated to this well. And in the early horizontal days when there was one horizontal target in play it was easy too, just draw a rectangle around horizontal portion of the well and say okay, these acres belong to this well. NOW as operators begin to develop multiple targets horizontally these rectangles start to overlap and therein lies the problem. Now you can have the same acres in multiple horizontal well “rectangles” I.E. they have been allocated several times over. The Stacked lateral essentially allows multiple well bores that are more or less on top of one another to be treated as a single well for regulatory allocation of acreage purposes. This also plays into production reporting and makes it difficult to see what the single wells that make up a stacked lateral are doing. One “master” well will show up as producing and all the other wells on the stacked lateral will appear as shut in despite producing. An important note, a stacked lateral does not mean a multi-bore lateral (as cool as they are), it can be several single bore laterals combined under one regulatory umbrella.
KatKon, thank you for making such a complicated issue clear. One question though…when you mentioned regulatory allocation of acreage did you mean for production unit size or for an actual allocation well? I’m asking because I believe production unit size is normally controlled by the lease…unless there is also some regulation (other than minimum spacing rules) that I’m not aware of.
Stacked laterals sound like an evolving area of mineral regulation. As they become more common I wouldn’t be surprised to see frequent litigation occur between competing interests. Perhaps like what has happened with allocation wells.
I ran across the stacked laterals references while review a report and analysis of Apache operations. I believe it focused on the remainder of this year and moving forward. The phrase is referenced at least five times in this report Apache - Alpine High Q3 2018 Update: A Potential Midstream Investment Opportunity Emerges - Apache Corporation (NYSE:APA) | Seeking Alpha
Kathy, I’m not if sure the stacked lateral acreage assignment is impacting production unit sizes or even possible with allocation wells… The acreage designation and assignment/allocation of acres I’m speaking to is what operators fill in on the P16 form. This “assigned acres” math changes with the stacked lateral. (When I spoke with the RRC about it I was more interested in the production data reporting aspect of it than the land side) The RRC has some good examples and explanations of this at the following link (slides 3-11):
So for a single lateral (not stacked) is it the lease that controls how many assigned acres goes onto the P-16? It’s the operator who fills out the form, after all.