FRACKING: LOOKING BACK AFTER A DECADE

FRACKING IN BRIEF


Just a few years back, as a nation, we were wondering where our next tank of home heating-fuel or gasoline was to come from.  The recent (2003) development known as "fracking" has changed all of that.  Fracking has turned our interst to natual gas, a cleaner fuel, and one which has now become much more available to us. Fracking is a  term coined by oilmen working on the Barnett Shale in Texas in 2003 who linked the technology of driving horizontal wells with that of high pressure underground fluid injection wells to fracture deep sedimentary deposits so as to recover natural  gas trapped in sedimentary rock. Since that time thousands of such horizontal wells have been drilled and enormous quantities of natual gas have become available to consumers at low prices. Some descibe our new situation as becoming the "Saudi Arabia of Natural Gas".  This new method has a colorful and interesting history.


Way back in  the 1930s oil drillers learned how to "slant" oil bore pipe to reach hard-to-get oil reservoirs, or to illegally  poach oil from neighboring high-production wells.   In 1973 the Eastman Whipstock Company developed a slightly curved "whipstock" at the base of the well to gently turn the drill bit into another direction. Estman became the largest "directional" oil drilling company in the world, able to bend its drill pipes into a curve way below the surface. But the technology was time-consuming, expensive and not put into general use.  About that time too a new motor was developed which turned the drill bit by means of the circulating drilling mud. With these new "down hole" "mud motors" the bit could continue to turn at the bottom of the hole while the upper lengths of pipe remained stationary. Placing a bendable stub of pipe between the vertical pipe and the motor would cause the bit to change direction.  Since that time oil drillers have continued to perfect ways of determining direction and depth while drilling so that the drill bit and the following string of pipe could be very accurately located and positioned even thousands of feet down. They can even use this technology to turn an oil rig drill bit and the string of  steel pipe thousands of feet underground to make it drill horizontally rather than just straight down. In that way it could follow a rock stratum or seam of oil or gas bearing rock underground  It was a neat trick that made it possible to keep a rig in place and drill several locations of a reservoir, or tap into reservoirs not easily approached from directly above, like one under a town or under an ecologically sensitive area.  

Sadly these technical advances in oil drilling in the late 1980s are often sited as contributory factors to the bloody First Gulf War. Since that conflict also led to the Second Gulf War, the Afghanistan War, and its economic impacts even may have contributed to the Arab Spring the effects of this new technology may have been very far reaching indeed.


In Kuwait, in the late 1980s, British and American-operated oil rigs used directional or slant  drilling technology to siphon oil from neighboring Iraq. By slant drilling they could be sited directly above the center of the Kuwait oil reservoir but when no one was looking, turn the drill bit so it would "slant" into the rich oil-pool under neighboring Iraq.  When US-supported dictator Saddam Hussein learned that "his oil" was being siphoned off to Kuwait, a traditional competitor and enemy, he complained bitterly to Kuwait and to the USA authorities, but to no avail.  When diplomatic intervention failed to end the oil siphoning practice which Iraq claimed cost them some $8-9 billion dollars in lost revenues Saddam threatened war. With the loss of oil revenue and other severe economic problems weakening his regime, Saddam threatened to use his million man  army and considerable military hardware (supplied by the USA during the Iran-Iraq War) for an invasion of Kuwait.  On 2nd of August, Saddam did just that.  The first Gulf War 1990-91 an example of war precipitated in large part by new oil drilling technology was the result.


Back home, here in the USA our oil reserves had been pretty much depleted  by the turn of the millennium. Formerly a major oil exporter we became a major importer...heavily dependent upon ME oil and willing to cut corners and use our superior technology, and military might to get it--as in Kuwait   But at home to eke out profits, from depleted wells oil companies began experimenting with means to extract remnant oil in underground reservoirs.  They soon discovered that many of these fields had little oil left, but plenty of gas.  But in many places the gas was trapped in shale formations that were only minimally permeable.  Some companies, working the Barnett Shale in Texas realized that they could combine the new horizontal drilling techniques with newly designed high pressure pumps on the surface to force water into these resistant gas bearing, shale formations. The pressurized water would force its way into tiny fissures in the rock and expanded them.  When the pressure was eased, the fractured rock released the gas which then would flow back up the drill pipe to the surface where it was collected and stored  They also discovered that by adding certain chemicals to the high pressure fluids injected into the wells, they could more effectively enlarge the fractures and enhance the gas flow. Adding grit and sand, called "proppants" to these pressurized liquids were found to help to keep the tiny fractures open and enhance gas flow.

This is a brief explanation of the process called "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing shale rock formations underground to release trapped gas. With expansive areas of our nation underlain by these sedimentary formations, it soon became apparent that the USA might well be termed the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas".  Some geologists estimate that we may have more than 2,000 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of likely, probable, and potential reserves of natural gas.  At present rates of use (@ 24 tcf/ year) they estimate we might have reserves that could last our nation a hundred years!