SHANA - The National Iranian Drilling Company (NIDC) carried out 15,833 meters of horizontal and directional (slant) drilling operations in the first 4 months of the current Iranian calendar year which began on March 21, an NIDC official said.

According to NIDC, Caretaker of Special Operations Directorate of NIDC Mehran Alipour said the operations were performed on 34 oil wells in oil-rich regions of the country including one in South Azadegan joint oilfield.

Directional drilling (or slant drilling) is the practice of drilling non-vertical wells. It can be broken down into four main groups: oilfield directional drilling, utility installation directional drilling (horizontal directional drilling), directional boring, and surface in seam (SIS), which horizontally intersects a vertical well target to extract coal bed methane.