Natural Gas Fracking Methods

November 21st, 2011 | Author: richhill

Natural Gas Fracking

The term natural gas fracking is about the process for the release of trapped natural gas from a rock layer in the earth. The fracking procedure that can be used for natural gas can be either hydrofracking or propane fracking.

The reason a fracking process might need to be used to help extract natural gas is because it may be trapped in a rock layer. This is a common predicament with a shale rock deposit that has trapped natural gas in the pores of the rock. The largest deposit of this kind in America is the Marcellus shale rock deposit in the northeastern portion of America.

A portion of this shale rock layer is near the surface, but a majority of it is between 2,000 and 9,000 feet below it. This is the target deposits for the fracking process to occur. These targeted areas are well below the aquifers in the area and can have the energy reserves recovered without any collateral damage to them.

Of the two different types of fracking process, each one has advantages and disadvantages as compared to each other. The hydrofracking process uses water. The plentiful supply and ease of transporting this raw material makes the cost of acquiring it less than the propane in a gel form. It is also less dangerous than the propane gel.

The propane gel is more expensive, but is comparatively effective in the fracturing of the shale rock layers. The two leading advantages of using this gel include the time that is required to recover the propane. This time frame is only 48 hours in most instances. The hydrofracking process requires a time frame of 7 to 14 days to recover the water slurry before the well can being the process of recovering natural gas for the market place.

Another advantage for the use of the propane gel for the preferred fracking process is what becomes of the fracking slurry when has completed its job. The propane is collected in a tank that will also contain some natural gas that can be recovered at a later date.

The hydrofracking slurry has to be channeled to a waste pond near the well bore. In this pond the water and frac sand does separate but the water will still contain a small amount of contaminants. This has to be treated at a later date.

There are options when deciding which process is used for the natural gas fracking in the Marcellus shale rock deposit region of the country. Regardless of which one is chosen, both processes line the well bore so the aquifer layer along with other layers in the ground are isolated from the pressure and the slurry of the fracking process.