Sand for Fracking
The use of sand for fracking in the oil and natural gas industry is a necessary piece of the puzzle. Fracking is a process where water and/ or VOCs are injected into a borehole to assist in the extraction of more oil and gas when normal conditions cause the flow to decrease.
When this process was first used nearly a century ago, mainly water alone was injected into the boreholes. Today, the process has been modified because improved techniques have been developed. With advances in vertical drilling, boreholes can penetrate more surface area of a rock layer. This allows for more of the shale rock formation to be exposed to the pressure that will commence the cracking or fracking of the rock.
This process worked very efficiently, but once the rocks were cracked, these fissures would close when the pressure was released. This is why sand has been introduced to form a slurry with the water before it is injected into the borehole. The sand might be small, but has enough density to withstand the crushing force of the rock once the pressure is released.
By keeping the fracture open, the sand allows for additional oil and gas that had been previously trapped to flow to the surface for recovery by the well crew. There are different sizes of fracking sand available in America.
The two most commonly used ones are the Northern Sand and the Brady Sand. The northern sand is found in the northern US states and is more spherical in shape. It can be purchased in 12/20, 16/30, 24/40, and 40/70 mesh sizes. Brady sand can be found in Texas, which as a less consistent shape but still meets the requirements of the industry. It comes in 8/16, 12/20, 16/30, and 20/40 mesh sizes.
These two sources of sand for fracking are both being used in the Marcellus Shale region to assist with oil and natural gas production.
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