Posts Tagged ‘United States’

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More on Marcellus Shale Drilling

The Marcellus shale drilling sites across the northeastern portion of the nation are recovering energy deposits that are 400 million years old. This was when this area of land was a sea bed that was void of oxygen that formed the now present energy reserves.

The layers of the shale rock that is being penetrated in this region are between 2,000 and 9,000 feet deep. The natural gas and oil deposits in this shale rock bed are trapped in the pores and layers of the rock. To recover enough of the energy reserve to make the drilling process worth exploring the use of hydrofracking must be used.

Hydrofracking is a process in which a slurry is pumped into the well at extremely high pressure. This will cause the pores and layers to fracture which leads the oil and natural gas being released.

Marcellus Shale Drilling and Fracking

The 99.5% of the slurry is made up of a combination of water and frac sand. The remainder includes acids and surfactants to help get the energy reserves out of the ground in an efficient manner. To help prevent the fracking from occurring in any layer of rock between the surface and the shale rock layer, the well bore is lined with a reinforcement.

To help this process even further the old way of drilling a well has been modified. With easily to extract energy reserves from the ground, a vertical shaft has been drilled in the past. This was a straight shot down on top of the reserve. The trapped oil and natural gas would then flow up so it could be recovered for the American consumer to use.

To maximize the area in the fracking process, not only does the well bore have to be vertical, but also horizontal once it reaches the shale rock bed layer. This way the well bore’s surface area under the ground is maximized for a better result when the hydrofracking process is initiated. This allows for a greater amount of the trapped oil and natural gas to be recovered from each well that is drilled from the Marcellus shale rock deposit.

The amount of the shale rock bed that is crushed by the hydrofracking process is limited, so a number of wells have to be drilled to extract all the possible trapped energy reserves from the region. This is why so many wells are being used to recover this valuable energy reserve.

Marcellus Shale Drilling Region

The use of Marcellus shale drilling in this region is the best way for the domestic energy supply to be generated for the American consumer. This is the largest deposit of its kind in North America and will help our country to be more independent from the foreign sources of oil and natural gas for the foreseeable future.

Natural gas drilling is now a high tech operation as witnessed by this video describing the way to determine the gas reserve in an area.

Calculating accurate unconventional reserve areas

Example showing the use of Team-GIS software to calculate areas of coal bed methane reserves based on well results. Email gas@exprodat.com for further information about using GIS to plan unconventional gas projects.

Related articles

• Marcellus Shale Fracking for Natural Gas (transloading.org)
• Marcellus Shale Natural Gas (transloading.org)
• The Pros of Fracking (transloading.org)

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The pros of fracking for the natural gas and oil industries have an effect that carries onward to the American consumer. The most notably is in the form of lower prices at the gas pump and for heating the American homes.

While hydrofracking is a process used on energy wells since the first ones were drilled nearly 100 years ago.  The process is necessary for the recovery of the energy reserves of the shale rock based wells to a higher degree than the other types of wells that have been used. This is due to the makeup of where the oil and natural gas is under the ground.

For decades the fracking of wells was done to extract more oil and natural gas out of a well once the easily obtainable portion of the oil has decreased in its flow to the surface. These were vertical wells that were placed on top of large reserves that could easily be recovered. The fracking process would loosen up the edges of what remained so it could be extracted. This was done to save on the cost of drilling more wells.

The drilling of a new well has always been a risky proposition. Not every well that has been drilled was on top of an oil or natural gas deposit. For this reason once a deposit was found, the maximum amount of the trapped energy reservoir was extracted. Fracking thus saved time and money in assisting the energy company at obtaining the greatest amount of oil and natural gas from each well that was producing.

When these easily extractable reserves of oil and natural gas were not enough to meet the needs of the US and world demands, the exploration into shale rock oil recovery was initiated. By changing the way the wells were drilled from vertical to vertical then horizontal thousands of feet under the surface, a greater area of the shale rack could then be affected by the hydrofracking process.

The hydrofracking of the shale rock basin would then crush this porous rock and release the trapped oil and natural gas it contained. This can then be easily recovered at the surface to help meet the needs of the American consumer.

The alternative to fracking existing and new wells in America is vastly more expensive and controversial. The only other known areas of energy reserves left on the plant are under the waters of the oceans. If these were the only options left, there would not only be a shortage of energy for the American consumer, but also higher prices for what they could use.

The pros of fracking heavily outweigh the alternative of less energy to use with higher prices to use it. This would not be good for the pocket books of the average America nor the economy as a whole.

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• Marcellus Shale Fracking for Natural Gas (transloading.org)
• Hydrofracking Advantages (transloading.org)
• Marcellus Shale Fracking (transloading.org)

Erik Oswald on Natural Gas Exploration

Commercial from Exxon’s 2011 Corporate ad program. Exxon Geologist Erik Oswald touts the benefits of hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking) without ever calling it that… See my blog post (agmaynard.blogspot.com) to learn why most of what Oswald says h…

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Natural Gas from Marcellus Shale

The Marcellus Shale Natural Gas estimated reserve has been reduced from 262 trillion cubic feet of gas in 2009 to 84 trillion cubic feet of gas this year from the Energy Information Agency of America. What the American consumer needs to realize is that this is just an estimate and not a hard fact.

The hard facts of this massive shale oil and natural gas deposit are that it covers an area from the Great Lakes to the north of New York all the way down the Appalachian Mountains to Alabama. The exact amount of trapped energy reserves that is recoverable will never really be known.

This layer of shale rock is on average 2000 to 9000 feet deep. This is well below the water tables in nearly every region it is located in. There is also enough in the smallest amount that has been estimated for the natural gas deposit to be present to supply every home in America with this domestic energy source for 4 years. The upper end is 100 years.

Marcellus Shale Economy

The economic boom in this region of the country is a welcome boost to the working class people that live there. The jobs will come from supplying the raw materials for the wells. This will include the frac sand for the hydrofracking of the wells. These jobs will be on the rail lines transporting the material along with the transloading stations that will place the material on the tractor trailers and the drivers that will haul the cargo to its final destination. All of those jobs do not even include the well teams that will be necessary.

All of these workers will also need to eat, places to stay and supplies of their own. The communities that embrace this domestic energy reserve can finds themselves out of the recession faster than those that are protesting the projects.

The major oil and gas producers are starting to build the processing plants that are necessary to handle this vast amount of energy when it is recovered. For those communities that no not desire to be a part of it just might find themselves bypassed.

Hydrofracking in Marcellus Shale

The concern over the drinking water has only been drummed up by those that are not looking at the facts. Hydrofracking has been in use for both energy well and drinking water wells for over 100 years. It is a safe and the only process that can break the shale rock formation so the natural gas and oil can be recovered.

The Marcellus Shale Natural Gas reserve is a boom for the regional economies and the best domestic natural energy resource available today. There is no substitute, even the electric cars need energy that is created by natural gas.

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• Spin overtaking facts in Marcellus Shale debate (sfgate.com)
• Marcellus Shale Fracking for Natural Gas (transloading.org)
• Marcellus Shale Fracking (transloading.org)

A Frac Sand Loading Facility is in business to handle the bulk transfer of this necessary commodity so the energy industry can have an amble supply of their needed material. This area of business has taken a hit during the recent economi9c downturn, but not for the same reason most other business have.

The reason the frac sand transfer facilities or transloading terminals have had a downturn in business is the controversy over the use of hydrofracking of energy wells. With many wells not being able to use the hydrofracking technology to help them extract the needed energy resources from the ground, the need for the raw material in this process has dropped off.

Unfortunately for the transloading facilities, the movement and transferring of bulk material from rail cars to tractor trailers is the only reason they exist. They have little choice of who their clients are and the business they are in because of the nature of the industry.

The transloading facilties were strategically placed to reduce the cost of transporting raw materials to the oil and natural gas wells across America including the Marcellus Shale region in the north eastern portion of the nation. These facilities have been an intricate part of helping to keep the cost of domestic natural gas and oil down over the years.

As special interest groups and politicians have become involved in the hampering the oil and natural gas exploration fields of industry, these businesses are starting to experience economic hardship.  These facilities specialize in the quick and efficient loading and offloading of rail cars so the rail lines of the nation are not bogged down by less efficient means of off loading the rail cars.

Hydrofracking has been used as a productive technology to extract the maximum amount of oil and natural gas for expositing wells for over a century. In the shale rock formations, this technology is the only known means to extract the energy reserves from the ground. Without hydrofracking, the nation will have to again be more reliant on foreign oil and natural gas imports to supply the daily demands of the economy.

While all concerns of the American citizens should be addressed, moratoriums on technologies that have been in use for long periods of time should not occur just so the answers of a few can be determined. Work stoppages because of facts are warranted. Work stoppages because of fears are unwarranted and should be avoided in order to keep the economy moving in the right direction.

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• Frac Sand Transportation (transloading.org)
• Marcellus Shale Fracking for Natural Gas (transloading.org)
• Hydrofracking Advantages (transloading.org)

The job of Frac Sand Transportation is conducted by many different sectors of business working together. The three different sectors include the rail car, transloading stations and tractor trailer services.

When all three work in harmony together, the transportation of frac sand is done in an efficient manner and at the lowest possible cost. Each player in this cycle of providing the energy industry with this necessary raw material for hydrofracking and propane fracking contributes significantly to the over all process.

New sand towers at Valley, WIFrac sand is quickly becoming big business in Wisconsin. This shipping facility under construction along the Adams Line now has the track in place under the towers. The siding and main track are visible at the left edge of the picture. June 18, 2011.
Author:view2share

The rail cars and train service that picks up the frac sand at the supplier has the rail cars loaded into vessels that are designed for this type of bulk transport. This allows for the loading and unloading of the frac sand to be done easily and quickly without contaminating the raw material.

The transloading stations have the most complex part of this intricate of this process. These have to be strategically located near the final destination of the frac sand while still being on the main rail lines that criss cross the nation. Not every part of the country has transloading stations that can handle frac sand since this is a raw material that is only used by the energy industry in the hydrofracking of existing wells.

These transloading stations must also off load the rail cars efficiently and transfer the loads to awaiting tractor trailers in a manner that the frac sand does not become contaminated. This is usually done by the transloading stations having dedicated conveyors for the frac sand to be moved from the cars to the trailers. In an efficient station a rail car can be offloaded each hour per conveyer they have on location.

The last section of this transportation mechanism is the tractor trailers. These vehicles follow the short path to the final destinations which are the surrounding oil and natural gas wells in the local vicinity. In most instances the amount of travel time for these trucks is less than a day’s ride.

When all three of these industries are working together, the transportation of frac sand from the quarries where it is mined to the wells where it will be used to help extract the maximum amount of oil and natural gas from the ground can help to minimize the cost of the energy being demanded by consumers of the world.

The Frac Sand Transportation is a little known and thought about mechanism that helps to keep the total cost of energy for the consumers as low as possible.

Check out this video that explains one stage of the frac sand processing that takes place.

Sepro-Atalay Frac Sand Screening Test

This video demonstrates the Sepro-Atalay’s ability to screen very fine dry material (-70 mesh) effectively. That patented VFE exciter creates the chaotic motion on the screen deck to allow for classification through the screen media. The application …

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• Mining for FRAC SAND (wisair.wordpress.com)
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The process of Marcellus Shale Fracking for the trapped shale natural gas and oil reserves that are up to 9000 feet below the surface are still in the news. The source of most of the problems between the local communities and the energy industry is what is to be done with the waste water that is used in the fracking process.

What most do not realize is that over 99.5% of this waste water is only water and sand. The remaining chemicals are acids and VOC that are of the major concern by the uninformed. VOC stands for volatile organic compound which by its nature will evaporate at room temperature. This occurs on a regular basis while the waste water is sitting in the collection ponds waiting for treatment.

The acids in the water are small in proportion to the overall volume of the water but can still be easily adjusted as all water is done at a water treatment facility. This is a common practice in all the drinking water that is available today across the nation.

Unfortunately because of the misconception of the danger this waste water poses, a moratorium has been placed on the wells over the Marcellus Shale deposit in some places.  This has hit the local economy hard with the laying off of all the workers associated with the drilling process. The number of wells is over 1,800 at this time, each with a crew and mechanism for supplies including the transloading stations.

What really needs to get out is that hydrofracking has been used for over 100 years in all areas of this country and the world to help extract the maximum amount of energy reserves for existing wells. The statements that are being made that this is a new technique are totally false and misleading.

While many Americans do not believe what big businesses say anymore or trust the US government to protect their rights is somewhat warranted. The leading problem is the moratorium is put in place over fear and not facts. While there have been a few problems, the massive majority of the wells that have been hydrofracked, over 99.999%, have had no problems associated with them.

The Marcellus Shale Fracking processes are the best and least expensive chance America has at supplying the needs of the domestic consumer with the energy they are still demanding. The alternative is importing our energy at a higher cost and then being dependent on the foreign source for our future needs.

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• Boom In Gas Drilling Bringing Jobs To Pennsylvania (newdayunderwriting.wordpress.com)
• Hydrofracking Advantages (transloading.org)
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The Hydrofracking Advantages are many, but the main one is that it is the only way to extract the maximum oil and natural gas out of existing wells and to feed the needs of an energy hungry world.

Fracking has been in use for over 100 years and is used around the world in wells to help get trapped reserves to the surface.

It has also been shown to be the most efficient way of extracting trapped oil and natural gas from the many shale rock deposits that has been found. This has opened the door to billions of gallons of reserves that were previously thought to be unattainable.

Because hydrofracking in the many shale rock formations releases mostly natural gas, the use of this clean burning fuel can be used more readily than other dirtier fossil fuels. This will make a positive impact on the climate changes that are currently impacting the weather systems around the globe.

The majority of the drilling is done horizontal to the surface in the shale rock beds themselves with only the vertical shaft exposing the other layers of the ground to be exposed to the high pressure that hydrofracking uses to fracture the rock layers. In most instances this horizontal layer is 2000 feet deep or more.

To help prevent accidental contamination of the different layers going down, this vertical shaft is now being lined with concrete. While accidents do occur, the percentage of them in the natural gas and oil extraction field is less than 0.01%.

The hydrofracking process is done by two means. The medium used to transport the sand into position can be done by a propane gel or water. Both means are relatively safe, but the propane gel does not produce any waste water so it is the preferred choice.

For those that use the water as a medium, the makeup of the solution is over 99.5% to 99.95% water and sand. The remaining chemicals that are used are a concern for the many that oppose this scientific approach to extracting the necessary energy reserves from the ground.  What has not been brought to the fore front is the fact that this waste water is actually cleaner than most of the rivers and waterways across America.

Another fact that is left out of most discussions is that hydrofracking is also used to revitalize drinking water wells. This has been going for nearly a century also to the satisfaction of many land owners.

When looked at from a scientific view, the Hydrofracking Advantages far out weigh any misconceptions about this much needed process. The alternative is the reduction in the consumption of fossil fuels by the world. Not even the environmentalists are willing to do that.

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• Propane Fracking is a Good Alternative (transloading.org)
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[Image courtesy flickr.com/Bengt]

The process of transloading frac sand is one of those types of transfers that go highly unnoticed unless there is a problem, or it takes too much time. What most people do not realize is that his is a critical step in the transportation of this vital commodity.

What is not apparent to most that observe this transfer of bulk material is that it has to remain as free of contamination as possible. This might be the same types of sand that is found on the beaches around the world, but it has a specific task that it will need to perform.

All frac sand that is in transported to the oil and natural gas fields in America are destined to perform an important task. This is to keep the fractures open during the hydrofracking and propane fracking procedures so the valuable energy reserve can be extracted at the well bore. Without this frac sand being present and free of contaminates, the fractures in the rock bed would not remain open allowing the recovery of the energy reserves to occur.

The reason contamination of the frac sand has to be kept at a minimum is to help prevent an unwanted reaction to occur so the intended task it is to perform can happen. It also allows the frac sand to be more efficient in performing its task.

To help minimize the contamination of the frac sand during the transloading of the material from the rail cars to the tractor trailers, a designated conveyor is used. In the stations that are equipped properly, there is more than just one. Ideally there should be a conveyor for each station that a railcar can be positioned into for unloading.

On average it takes 5 tractor trailers to transload just one rail car. The time it takes to do this one railcar is just over an hour’s time. Since the demurrage of each rail car is at no charge for the first 24 hours,  it is financially responsible for the transloading station to perform the transloading of the frac sand within this time to minimize the cost of transporting this commodity.

An average load of frac sand sent by rail car is upwards of 25 cars. For this reason it is fiscally responsible to have up to 5 different transloading stations to off load the frac sand to help minimize the cost of its transport. 5 stations will be able to transload the frac sand of 25 rail cars in 5 hours. This will not only reduce the time required for the transportation of the frac sand to its final destination, but help to minimize the cost of its transport.

Transloading frac sand is more complex than it first appears to the casual observer. This is ok since the operators of the transloading stations know the tasks they have to perform and why.

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(Note: the image used above is of a transloading operation of a product that is not sand, however the process is quite similar.  Thanks to Bengt at flickr.com for calling my attention to this and thanks also for the use of the image.  Rich Hill admin.)

The fracking sand used in both hydrofracking and propane fracking is what makes the process successful. This little quartz particle does more than annoy beach visitors between their toes, it also holds open the fractures in the grounds that allows the trapped oil and natural gas to escape so it can be collected at the surface.

The reason sand is ideal for this application is due to its tensile strength. The rock formations that are fractures are held open by the sand. The sand acts as a porous barrier that keeps the cracks open without plugging it. This is when it allows the oil and natural gas to flow past it in the rock layers that lie below ground.

The frac sand is the common component for both types of fracking which includes hydrofracking and propane fracking. Since quartz is not dissolvable in either of the mediums used to transport the frac sand to its intended destination, it is ideal for the job at hand.

The frac sand is available in two general types. There is the white round sands found up in the northern part of the continent and the yellow irregular sands found in the southern portions of the United States. Both types have been used successfully over the years to hold the fractures open in shale and other types of rock formations.

The differences in the available frac sand are in the sizes that are used. These sizes are categorized by mesh sizes. The small number is the smallest particle size while the larger number is the largest particle size in that category. These sizes include 20/40, 30/50, 30/70 40/70 and over 100.

The size of frac sand that is appropriate for your application is dependent on the type of rock you are fracturing and the depth at which the process is taking place. The choice of either the round silica quartz or the irregular shape of the southern frac sands fields is a personal one of the project manager of the well site. Many believe the round frac sands of the northern variety can fit into the fractures easier, but there is no scientific data to prove this is actually occurring in the fracing procedure but it does make common sense.

If you are looking to use fracking sand for your well, it can be easily transported to your destination by rail car then transloaded onto trucks for its final delivery. This is the most economical way to take delivery of this bulk product.

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• Why Use Sand with Fracking (transloading.org)
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The development of propane fracking has come a long way since it was first proposed many years ago.

This has and is still the only economical alternative to hydrofracking to help extract additional energy reserves from the ground, especially from shale rock formation. It is also considered a Green alternative to hydrofracking and is allowed to be used under the current New York moratorium on hydrofracking.

There are a few draw backs from using propane instead of water to pressurize the rock formation and form the necessary fissures in the rock to release the trapped oil and natural gas. To begin with the use of propane for fracing purposes is more expensive that hydrofracking.

Another issue with using propane is that its state has to be altered from a gas to a non-explosive gel. This is done by adding peroxides and other chemicals to the gas that help to make it a liquid. This liquid is a relatively stable compound, but there has been an incident where a fire has broken out at a site during a fracking procedure using propane. The investigation on the true cause is still underway at this time.

The leading reason hydrofracking is not liked by many communities is the potential contamination of ground water sources. The big misunderstanding is that it is not the fracing that is causing the problem but the actual drilling of the wells. The oil and gas reserves are below the ground water tables so the wells need to penetrate this layer to reach the energy reserves. This has been the way of drilling for oil and gas since it first began over 100 years ago.

The fracking of wells is not the step in the extraction of energy from the ground that is causing the contamination of the ground water, but the actually drilling thru this layer of earth itself. The Green movements that have helped get in place the moratorium on hydrofracking in the state of New York have not also given any alternatives to the loss of energy reserves they are forcing or to hydrofracking itself.

Propane fracking is a great alternative to hydrofracking in many aspects. The wells can be operational faster and the amount of water used is dramatically reduced. The amount of cleanup afterward is also reduced because the gas is easier to collect from the well than the waste water that must be channeled to a pond onsite. The only way the protest against fracking can be appeased is to stop drilling wells in America or reduce our consumption. Not even the protestors are willing to do that.

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