Marcellus Shale Fracking Facts

December 28th, 2011 | Author: richhill

The need for Marcellus shale fracking is real if the trapped natural gas and oil deposits are to be extracted for use by the American consumer. This deposit has been known for over a century, but it was not economically feasible to extract the energy reserves while there were easier sources to tap.

The process of fracking has been in use on wells for over 100 years. The difference from the past is that the fracking process was used to revitalize a well after the main portion of the oil or natural gas was already collected. The hydrofracking of a well that was near empty was to flush the remaining portion of the trapped energy to the surface.

In the Marcellus shale rock region, the fracking process is used at the beginning of the extraction process. The reason this more expensive extraction of energy is now being preformed is because the known easy to get at reserves of oil and nature gas are almost depleted.

The energy companies of the world now have to find energy reserves in places that are more expensive to extract the oil and natural gas to meet the every growing demand of the global community. For US domestic deposits, the Marcellus shale rock deposit is the largest known energy reserve that has yet to be tapped to its fullest potential.

Because the natural gas and oil is in the pores of the shale rock in the Marcellus region, the hydrofracking procedure along with vertical drilling of the wells must be done at the beginning of the process of extracting the energy. This is vastly more expensive and time consuming than just drilling a well and having the energy reserve rush to the surface. This is what typically occurred in the past, but is rarely experienced today.

Without the fracking process being done to recover the natural gas and oil reserves in the Marcellus shale rock formation, the energy trapped underground would remain there. This would put an even larger degree of separation from the demands for these products and the supply of them. Since price is dictated by the supply of a product verses the demand for it, prices of natural gas and oil will rise significantly without the reserves from the Marcellus region being obtained.

The Marcellus shale rock deposit is not the only one of its kind in the US or the world, but it is the largest in North America. The use of fracking and vertical drilling has been developed significantly so a higher level of efficiency and safety has been achieved in these processes in just the last few years.

With Marcellus shale fracking, more natural gas and oil will be available for the American consumer at a low cost. One fact to consider in whether this is a good thing or not is the demand for these products are not going to decline any time soon.