Development status and prospect of the drilling technologies used for continental shale oil reservoirs in China

Since breakthrough was realized in the field of shale oil reservoir drilling in America in 2008, all energy enterprises and relevant departments in China have carried out a series of shale oil reservoir exploration and development. Shale oil well drilling is faced with difficult build up of extended reach well, unstable borehole wall, high well path control accuracy, poor formation drillability, low rate of penetration (ROP) and other difficulties. The distribution situations and technical difficulties of drilled continental shale oil wells in China and the status of the drilling technologies used for continental shale oil reservoirs in China were overviewed based on literature investigation. And the important significance of applying the factory like drilling technology to the development of continental shale resources in China was predicted from the aspects of industrial shale oil development, foreign advanced technologies, domestic technical difficulties and current development.