When Cabot Oil & Gas offered a lease for the natural gas under their land a few years ago, saying that it might drill a single horizontal well nearby, they weren't worried.
VOA: standard.2010.01.02
The KKR money prompted Hilcorp to add four more horizontal rigs, bringing its total to six and allowing it to drill over 40 horizontal wells.
Drillers also use sensors to detect particularly promising rock intervals within the formation, and are able to move the drill string up or down, left or right as they drill through the horizontal section to target those intervals.