Marcellus Shale Fracking – Transloading Bulk Materials for Marcellus Shale Drilling

Posts Tagged ‘Horizontal drilling’

The horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing that is involved in the natural gas and oil exploration fields in America is done to improve the amount of energy reserves that are being extracted from the ground.

The horizontal drilling is done to increase the amount of surface exposure a wellbore has with the subsurface rock formation. With more exposure to this surface area, the process of hydrofracking or fracking can be done with a greater amount of efficiency.

The hydrofracking is a process where a slurry is made with small amount of acid, frac sand, and water. The ratio of water to sand is 99.5: 0.5. This slurry is then pumped into the wellbore and down into the subsurface rockbed at a rate of up to 265 liters per second. Pressure is then applied to the slurry, which can reach upwards of 15,000 psi.

This pressurized slurry forms cracks in the brittle rockbed where energy reserves are trapped. The oil and natural gas is allowed to escape after the slurry pressure is released because the frac sand that is left behind in these cracks are keeping them open.

The frac sand’s density and crush limit is generally greater than the pressure being exerted on it from the rockbed, which makes it the ideal medium for holding open the fractures.

The water and excess frac sand is then recovered after the fracking process, and the additional natural gas and oil reservoirs can then be extracted and collected for use in the American market.

This is how horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing is contributing in a positive manner in making America less dependent on foreign energy imports.

Here is more about well drilling.

When it comes to shale fracking, there are some important components that make this procedure a success. One of them is the horizontal drilling approach to the wellbore. This allows for a great amount of surface area of the shale rock bed to be exposed to the pressure and fracking medium.

The greater the area exposed, the more the fracking of the rock bed will occur with less effort by the crew. Less effort can be equated as less time for the process to be a success. Like all businesses, natural gas and oil exploration is done to increase the revenue stream of those sponsoring the well. The faster it is completed, the sooner the crew can move onto the next well.

One factor in the extraction process of the energy reserve that is trapped in the shale rock bed is the ease at which the shale is fractured and the size of these fractures. To deal with the different size fractures in the wellbore, there are a 3 different mediums that are added to the slurry to keep these fractures open.

The most common is crystalline silica (sand) or quartz. This material is insoluble in water and has a specific gravity of 2.65. The melting point of this material is 1710 C which is how it withstands the pressure that is exerted in the wellbore without changing form.

This frac sand is also coated with a polymer resin when the fracture openings in the wellbore are needed to be slightly larger. This medium has a higher crush level and makes the sand particles rounder for more penetration than the irregular shapes sand particles.

The last type is the ceramics or polycrystalline alumina mixed with glass ceramics. The ceramics have the highest melting points which reach up to 4000 C. This medium is the roundest of all the fracking material, which allows for maximum penetration.

Immaterial of which one is used for shale fracking, they all serve the same purpose. To hold open the cracks to allow the natural gas or oil to permeate through the fissure so it can be collected at the surface of the wellbore.

The Marcellus shale region in the north eastern portion of the United States is the largest deposit of its kind in the hemisphere. This deposit is nothing new. It was discovered in the 1800’s but due to the need for a new type of tapping into the rock layer (horizontal drilling) and the abundance of reservoirs of natural gas that were easier to extract, this region was not developed until recently.

This layer of shale rock is 400 million years old. It is deep ocean sediment that was deprived of oxygen during the Devonian period in the Paleozoic era. This was a period in time when there was a mass extinction of life in the oceans and the shale rock beds around the world are the results.

The reason scientists have concluded for this formation to be found in multiple places around the globe is due to the very active tectonic plate movement of the period. It has been determined that the Appalachian Mountains in America along with the Caledonian Mountains in Great Britain and Scandinavia were created and rose above sea level when the super continent Pangaea was formed.

The extinction of the marine life that formed this layer is assumed to be from the rising temperature that existed during this period. Most of the world was covered by water and there were no glaciers in this time period. The surface temperature of the water has been estimated to be at 30 C or 86 F.

With this information most people had deduced that the global warming of this early period in earth’s history formed the energy reserves we are extracting today. Since the Marcellus shale region was formed by global warming, this natural fluctuation in the earth’s temperature can’t be all bad.

Click this link to read more about Marcellus Shale Drillers

The Marcellus shale rock deposit is the largest untapped energy reserve that is located in the continental United States. This region and the energy reserves that it contains has been known for decades, but left untouched because of the cost to extract the natural gas and oil from it.

This has changed in the past decade for two reasons, the improvements of horizontal drilling and the increased cost of natural gas and oil. A further contributor is the advancements in the technique of well fracking.

With all of these factors combined, the Marcellus region is expanding rapidly with well exploration. The only variable to the wells being bored is the depth of the shale rock formation. In most areas, this has already been determined.

The considerations that are determining the actual sites of the wells are several. This includes the proximity to a transloading site for the material that will need to be brought in. The closer the transloading site is to the well, the lower the transportation costs of materials will be.

The amount of monetary compensation the land owner is requiring is another factor that heavily influences whether the site is favorable or not. Since access to the shale rock formation covers a vast area, most any location will provide the same amount of access to the energy reserves.

The difference in most of the contracts with land owners is the compensation to recover the land after the well is no longer productive. Some call for no action while others have the rig dismantled and removed with the land cover being replaced with vegetation.

One known fact of the Marcellus shale reserve is there is enough natural gas in the ground to supply America with its natural gas needs for over 100 years, at its current rate of consumption.

Our sponsor, TranZ, is here to assist with materials and transloading of all type goods needed for this industry.

The natural gas shale industry is booming, not only in the Marcellus deposit region in the northeastern part of America, but around the world. Shale rock formations have long been known to contain large amounts of natural gas and oil deposits. The reason this industry did not boom until lately was that the demand for natural gas has increased and the free natural gas deposits are limited and not meeting the demand anymore.

The most influential reason the shale deposits are being invested in and recovered is the profit potential. Back in January of 1981, the price of natural gas the American consumer paid a thousand cubic feet was $3.94. Since this time, the price has steadily risen. 20 years later, in January of 2001, the price for the same amount of natural gas used by the American consumer had risen to $10.12. The historical peak in price reached $20.68 in July of 2008.

With a 2 ½ fold to 5 fold increase in price, it has now become economically feasible to invest in the shale rock deposits for the recovery of natural gas. To help with this endeavor, the development of horizontal drilling and the use of hydro fracking have dramatically increased the potential of each well that is bored.

It has been estimated that the natural gas in the shale rock deposit in the Marcellus region has enough to supply the needs of America for almost 116 years. With this type of energy reserve potential buried under America, the chances that our country will become independent from foreign oil and gas imports is a dream that may be realized in the future.

The natural gas shale industry will be a large part of America fulfilling the dream of not being reliant on the Middle East for our energy needs.  TranZ, our sponsor will be there to serve this industry with transloading the necessary materials and equipment needed to produce this natural gas.

The term horizontal drilling is also called directional drilling and slant drilling. This type of drilling is nothing new and has been around since the early 1900s.  The early methods were achieved through the use of bent or curved piping.

The true horizontal drilling did not occur until the development of the downhole drill motors that were developed in the 1970s. They used a stationary pipe for power with a rotating drill head and a piece of bent pipe or snub pipe that allowed for the direction of the hole to be changed.

The latest technological advances have come with the rotary steerable tools that allow the operator to drill in the direction they desire with more accuracy.

Compared to vertical drilling, the benefits of this type of hole boring are a greater access and exposure of a reservoir, along with more options on the placement of a drilling platform. This method is how energy companies are recovering oil and gas reserves that are located under towns and villages.

This process has also changed the way many companies now approach drilling. There are instances where up to 40 different drilling platforms are placed closely together. Each one heads off in a different direction underground to recover the energy reserves that are trapped below ground. Because the platforms are located in a smaller area, the environmental impact is reduced.

In years to come, more wells will use the horizontal drilling techniques to recover more energy to meet the demands of consumers.

The term gas fracking is the slang used in the oil and gas industry when referring to hydro fracturing of the rock deposits. When first used at the turn of the last century, the injecting of water into a well was used to bring more of the oil deposit to the surface.

Horizontal drilling began to be used over 60 years ago. This helped drillers tap into a larger cross section of a deposit. Natural gas explorers soon noticed there were advantages of injecting sand with the water under high pressure to break the rock formations and cause micro fractures in the rock.

The water and sand mixture is called slurry. When this is injected into a well at pressures up to 15,000 psi, it causes the cracking of the rock. This releases the trapped gas that is in the shale rock formations. The sand is used to help keep these micro fractures open so the gas can escape to the surface and be collected.

The horizontal drilling techniques make it possible for the fractures to develop in the rock layer more evenly and in greater numbers. There is no need to fracture rock layers that contain no oil or gas, which this type of drilling helps to reduce.

From an environmental standpoint, this hydro fracturing to recover more trapped natural gas could be beneficial to reducing the buildup of greenhouse gases especially CO2. This is possible if more coal burning electrical plants convert their energy source to the cleaner burning natural gas that is becoming more abundant. This in part can be contributed to advances in the gas fracking techniques now being deployed in the Marcellus shale deposit in the Appalachian mountain region of our country.

When Marcellus Shale drillers decide on a location to drill for natural gas, they have the latest scientific data to assist them. The process they also use will be a newly developed technology that was designed specifically for the type of land formation and deposits that exist in the Marcellus Shale formation. This new method is called horizontal drilling.

Horizontal Drilling

Horizontal drilling was developed between 1985 and 1993. With the aid of directional boring, wells can now be drilled to a specific level, and then turned horizontal for a greater chance of extracting a natural gas deposit. This technology has the capability to reach depths up to 15,000 feet. The deepest known gas deposit in the Marcellus Shale formation is only 7000 feet deep.

Because of this new advancement, many companies from around the world have made investments in the area of the Marcellus Shale deposits. This not only includes Americans, but also Canadian and Indian companies. The states of Pennsylvania and West Virginia have the greater number of wells at this time and the state of New York is in the process of drilling for the gas deposits that are located in their state.

For those workers with drilling experience, the jobs are mainly in Pennsylvania. In 2008, 29,000 jobs were added related to the Marcellus shale formation. In 2009, 48,000 more were added, and in 2010, 107,000 are expected to be open. Less than 1% of those jobs will be directly involved with the drilling operations. The rest are in supporting the crews of the many wells that are being operated and planned.

What is known is that the numbers of Marcellus Shale drillers that will be needed per well are averaging 11.53 full time employees. What is for sure is that there will be work in these region connected to the Marcellus shale formation for at least the next 100 years.
This process of natural gas drilling is good for the employment economy as well as supplying energy needs.

Our Transloading blog sponsor is TranZ and they are in the support business of supplying bulk materials and and transportation of the unique materials needed in this industry.

Click this link to read more about the Marcellus Shale Region