By KEN MILAM
EXPLORER Correspondent

Digital Field Will Be Real -- In Time

"SMART WELLS NOT EASY"

"HOW BIG CAN OIL FLOWS GET?"

How Big Can Oil Flows Get?

Here's a prediction on the near horizon: the 100,000-barrel-per-day well.

It comes from Vik Rao, Halliburton vice president of technology ventures.

The key development that will allow this volume of production is the monodiameter well, with a single-diameter casing essentially from top to bottom, he said.

"This allows us to drill to depths limited only by other technologies," Rao said.

Made possible by expandable casing, the first well probably will be a deep project in the Gulf of Mexico, and is likely to be completed before 2005, Rao said.

The current high producer at 56,000 bpd ("no slouch") probably relies on a borehole telescoping down to allow five and one-half-inch tubing.

"We could put seven-inch or higher down there ... goodness knows what that guy will do," he said.

Multilateral boreholes will help avoid drawdown problems, he said.

And if, as some hypothesize, the Gulf gas reservoirs are fed through faults from deeper sources, "we can go for the mother lode, as it were," he added.

"Horizons of interest that were too deep before will now be interpreted ... because we know now we can get to them," he said.

"And when we get there, we will have a much bigger conduit."

-- KEN MILAM