Upper Three Forks In Painted Woods Case Study

There are several types of shale that are drilled in which include: Bakken shale, Barnett shale, Eagle Ford shale, Haynesville shale, Marcellus shale, and Utica shale. Bakken shale is a formation of oil deposits that can be found in parts of Montana, North Dakota, and parts of Saskatchewan which is located in Canada (“What is Fracking”). Barnett shale contains large amounts of natural gas, and sometimes oil and can be found in North Texas (“What is

The most important of these is the Permian Basin. In the latter half of the Paleozoic era, sediments rich in organic matter accumulated here when a shallow sea got cut off from the main oceans and evaporated off, leaving lots of dead critters and evaporites. These sediments eventually got buried and compressed, causing the oil and gas to form "pockets in permeable rock, surrounded by impermeable rocks so that they couldn't escape. There the fluid sits until someone pokes a hole (well) into the area and the contents rush out as the tremendous pressure is released. Other areas of Texas with notable petroleum sources include East Texas's Woodbine Formation (formed in the Late Cretaceous), much of the Gulf Coast and the Gulf itself, and various smaller pockets in South and South Central Texas.

The well tested in this project is located in the city of Brighton in Weld County, CO. Well SHABLE AB11-04P which is operated by Halliburton is one of the many wells in the Wattenberg field. Wattenberg field is a low permeability (“tight”) basin center gas field (Highley 12).Based from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 1999, the Wattenberg field has approximately produced 1.75 TCFG, 76.4 MMBO, and 15.7 MMBW from all of the formation above. The primary source of hydrocarbon production in the Wattenberg field comes from the Muddy (“J”) Sandstone formation which currently has 1,900 producing wells. The Wattenberg formation also has a potential biogenic gas reserves for coalbed methane (CBM) production at the Laramie formation

Paragraph 1: Hydraulic fracking is a hot topic across the state of Texas. There are debates whether fracking is the actual cause of the sudden earthquakes in Texas. Fracking is an intense process where natural gas is extracted deep from within the earth. Drillers from oil and gas companies use a horizontal drilling technique that is initiated as a vertical casing and then makes a 90 degree turn. This allows the well to follow the natural fractures of shale rock. A fracking fluid mixed of water, sand, and chemicals is injected with high-pressure down the well. The fluid produces several small cracks in the shale, creating a pathway for the gas to enter and flow out of the well casing. Each well can

Given fracking’s youth and considering its only significant sites are in the US, research is largely confined on the Marcellus region which runs across two-thirds of Pennsylvania and extends into other states (MSTEC 2011) or the Barnet region in Texas.

There is a lot of controversy over the new practice of getting to fresh natural gas stored in the shale under our feet. The process has been named hydraulic fracturing, and as you can imagine, it involves water (hydro) and breaking stuff (fracking). The results that many people have been experiencing close to where this technique is used seem to be having

Canada’s oil sands are among the largest oil reserves in the word. This is evident from the fact that Canada is ranked third for the largest oil reserve in the world, after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia (“Oil Sands,” n.d.). “Oil sand”, is a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, water and bitumen (Gosselin et al., 2010). It is a very dense and extremely viscous oil that must be treated before it can be used to produce usable fuels such as gasoline and diesel (Gosselin et al., 2010). In North America, high oil prices, growing demand, and diminishing oil reserves results in greater interest to mine local oil reserves. Increased production of oil generates significant economic benefits but, at the same time, the development of the oil sands

Hydraulic fracturing or fracking has been around since the 1940’s, (Choma, et al, 2016), additionally it involves a large amount of pressurized water that has also been mixed with sand and other toxic chemicals to force shale gas out of deep rock formations (Deveau, 2014). The sand and supplementary chemicals are used to ensure that the fractures will remain accessible, to ensure that the oil and gas can flow back to the surface (Wheeler, 2015). There are two main types of hydraulic fracturing: vertical and horizontal (Choma, et al, 2016). Vertical fracking is the conventional method of drilling straight down into the earth’s crust, compared to horizontal fracking which allows the well to take place laterally (Choma, et al, 2016). The mix

Natural gas began to be extracted from the Marcellus shale formation in the mid-2000s’, and now well pads and their associated infrastructures are now well known fixtures in the Appalachian Mountain regions. Marcellus Shale is an organically rich black shale which is currently being explored by drilling as a source of natural gas. The region in question encompasses most of the relatively uninhabited Appalachian basin, which is located within the Appalachian mountain range. The basin is comprised of sedimentary rocks which stretch from Ontario, Canada all the way down through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and New Jersey.

One of the most highly debated topics in the gas industry is hydraulic fracking. News about it is on the radio, tv and all over the internet. The truth about hydraulic fracking can be hard to find but is imperative to know the truth. The U.S Energy Information Administration estimates that the United States has 2,119 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas. They predict that 60% of this gas is “unconventional gas” that is stored in low permeability formations such as shale, coalbeds, and tight sands (Jackson, 2011).

Some of the earliest “fracking” techniques can be traced back as early as the 1860’s (Carlson, 2011). These early techniques, used primarily in oil wells, used liquid nitroglycerin as a stimulant to break up shallow, hard rock wells that were located Pennsylvania, New York, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The use of nitroglycerin was extremely hazardous and often deemed illegal in many states; however, this “shooting” process was very successful. “Shooting” is a term used for injecting the nitroglycerin into the well to produce rubbished rock to increase both initial flow and the recovery of oil (Montgomery, 2010). Because of the success on oil wells, the similar principles were applied to gas and water wells.

‘So companies drill down, often a mile or more. They drill sideways through a shale layer that might be only a hundred or a couple hundred feet thick. And once they’ve drilled out sideways a mile or two, then they’ll pump water, sand, and chemicals underground at very high pressure to crack the rock and free the gas’ . Fracking fluid is mostly water, and each fracking job takes 2 to 4 million gallons of water per well. Once pumped underground, several million gallons flow back to the surface as wastewater. Massive water withdrawals from rivers and streams occur to achieve this process, thus resulting in a major ecological impact; ‘stream/river stress’. Another ecological hazard is habitat fragmentation stemming from the siting of oil well pads, pipelines and supporting infrastructure. Aside these toxic emissions to air, water and soil also affect the ecological domain. Potent greenhouse gas such as methane and particulate matter from compressors and flaring5 pose potential damage to the quality of air inhaled by the residents and community in

Studies, conducted in the Midwestern United States, have shown an increased amount to earthquake activity surrounding drilling locations. From 1970 to 200, the region experienced approximately 20 quakes per year; it experienced 29 between 2001 and 2008 with an exponential increase from 2009 to 2011 (Ehrenberg 22). The problems do not seem to be associated with the drilling itself, but with the waste water disposal re-injected back into sandstone below the Earth’s surface. The waste water acts as a lubricate between fault lines causing movement resulting in the shift of bedrock formations. Both advocates and opponents acknowledge the possibility for earthquake damage, however fracking proponents believe the risk is validated by the associated economic

Oil was discovered in this area in 1951, but the trick was extracting it. Then, not long ago, came a marriage of two techniques—one older, one newer. The older one was “hy - draulic fracturing,” or “fracking,” for short. This is the method by which oil or natural gas is forced from rock. The newer technique was horizontal

Hydraulic fracking is one of the major fossil fuel industries in areas with large shale basins. It has led to a multitude of arguments over safety and environmental factors. With all of the new and safer processes to retrieve natural gas on the rise, there should be no reason why hydrofracking can’t become one of the nations largest producers of fossil