Q&A for How to Drill an Oil Well

Advantage: It is the most efficient way to obtain petroleum, and oil is a resource that can be used in a variety of ways. Disadvantage: It has the potential to ruin our environment and deplete natural resources.

That would largely depend on which province/state the drill work is being done, the type of oil/gas the well will produce & the type of structure being built. If a house is near a "light oil" well it could be as close as 100 yards to the well. If the well is a "sour gas" well, it could be as far as a mile to the well site. Commercial buildings are a different matter all together. For those buildings, other factors are considered, such as the product/service the commercial operator is providing, the amount of employees, daily activities, raw &/or finished product storage onsite. Typically speaking though, 100 yards/meters is as close as anyone would want to live next to a well site.

It doesn't. A newly drilled well will be operating at its peak as soon as you complete it and bring it on, mainly because your bottom hole pressure will be at its maximum PSI and will taper off from there (hopefully over a long period of time). The more push you have coming up the hole, the better off your well will be, assuming you are in an oil reservoir.

It minimizes the surface disturbance needed to get each of those targets. One pad to drill from also equals one pad to pump from and one pad to remediate when the well is retired.It costs less for the oil company to drill this way, in turn allowing them to provide a cheaper product to you. There is no increased risk in using one pad versus a new site for each well.

You're breaking through layers of earth, which destabilizes the local geography. You're depleting an irreplaceable fossil fuel and there are always dangers of spills or leaks, which can be devastating.

You will have go for "fishing," which means you will need to extract the casing pipe with a fishing tool that can latch onto the broken end and pull it out to the surface.