Introducción

Directional drilling began with the use of devices such as whip-stocks or techniques such as jetting to kick off, rotary assemblies to control inclination in tangent sections, and wireline steering tools to orient and survey. These tools possessed limited directional control capabilities, required frequent tripping of the drill-string, and made directional drilling an expensive, difficult, and sometimes risky proposition. Directional well planning was more an art than a science, and capabilities and boundaries were based largely on empirical observations and historical tool performance.