Drilling a well to extract natural gas from the ground may sound simple but it is not. Vertical or horizontal, hydraulically fractured or not, all gas well drilling requires a long series of usually complex steps. Before any drilling takes place, the
well pad must be established, and be large enough to support all of the equipment needed to drill and hydraulically fracture a well. In the case of horizontal wells, a special drill bit is used to turn the drill at an angle at a predetermined depth, referred to as the “kickoff point.” To turn a well fully horizontal takes around 1000 vertical feet of drilling.