Marcellus Shale Fracking – Transloading Bulk Materials for Marcellus Shale Drilling

Posts Tagged ‘brittle rock layer’

The energy resource called shale gas has been know for many years, but only recently extracted. This was because there were numerous other reservoirs that were easier to tap into. Now with the world’s energy needs are growing and the reserves shrinking, it has become economically feasible to go after and develop the wells with shale deposits of energy.

The natural gas is trapped inside of rock formations or shale rock. This is not permeable and needs to be fractured to allow the gas to escape. The procedures to efficiently extract this gas are nearly perfected in America at this time. This has lead to speculation that nearly half of the natural gas supply that Americans will be using by 2020 will be from this source.

America is not the only place on the globe where shale deposits rich with gas and oil can be found. Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia all have energy rich shale deposits that can be extracted to help meet the worlds demand for this clean burning energy source.

On a positive note, this newly used energy source is helping to keep the price of natural gas down from more traditional sources like Russia and the Middle East.

The places around the world where deposits are found were left during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic ages that have since formed a brittle rock layer. Because of the rocks brittleness, the fracturing of the rock is easier and can be kept open with sand easily.

While methane is 72 times more damaging to the atmosphere than CO2, once burned it is relatively harmless and preferred to, instead of coal because of its non-polluting status. Shale gas might not be a renewable energy source, but it is a clean energy that can help the world reduce its dependency on coal and oil while not polluting the air we breathe.

Transloading services come in to play with the companies that do the drilling and have to move large quantities of fracking sand and drilling equipment.  Click on the TranZ banner on the right for more information.