I love industry documentation because it always provides a rare opportunity to catch them telling the truth.
A presentation by: ADVANCED RESOURCES INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Prepared for: Gas Shale Development Workshop
Sponsored by:
U.S. Department of Energy
U.S. Trade and Development AgencyBeijing, China
April 2010
This presentation focused on the Barnett Shale, which it calls the “gold standard of shale gas development.”
On slide #6 they clear up one of the frequent lies industry and our regulators like to tell us: They have been hydraulic fracturing gas wells for 60 years. That’s only partially true.
Initially, the Barnett Shale was developed with vertical wells.
Horizontal wells were introduced in 2002 and have become the dominant well design choice.
Not only is horizontal shale drilling a new technology that was only started in 2002, through 2003, there were only 76 horizontal wells in the Barnett Shale. By 2006 there were 1008 horizontal wells. This technology is so new that it’s still in the experimental stage.
Slide #11 explains that for decades natural gas production depended on natural fractures and the wells were shallow, vertical wells using small fracks.
At first Mitchell Energy experimented with refracking the wells when the production decreased.
From slide #27:
Further analysis also showed that many of the early well failures in the lower Ro areas were due to lack of fracture containment rather than insufficient thermal maturity.
I wonder if “lack of fracture containment” had anything to do with the contamination of Jim Bartlett’s water well.
On slide #31 you can see how little they know about how far and where their frack jobs go.
Slide #35 shows the newest hydraulic fracturing technology, a 12 stage fracture that will use 18,000 barrels of water per stage.
18,000 bbl X 42 gallons/bbl = 756,000 gallons
756,000 gallons per stage X 12 stages = 9,072,000 gallons
Remember, this water is not at all like the water used to water golf courses which is a claim industry loves to make. They water they used is a permanent withdrawal of our overall water budget. Natural Gas Production Causing Water Bankruptcy
On slide #42, we learn that the optimal well spacing in order to “raise gas recovery to over 50%” is 20 acres/well. But on slide #44 they admit that 20 acre well spacing would diminish individual well performance.
Downspacing to 40- and 20-acre would increase the recovery of gas inplace to over 50%, although well performance would decline.
I think the important thing to consider in that quote is that the reserve gas figures they bandy about are only 50% recoverable at best.
UPDATE: Why do you suppose Tarrant County is trying to get water from Oklahoma? Maybe Tarrant County should call for a temporary moratorium on new drilling permits until drillers can recycle the water they are using.
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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I've been wondering why Fort Worth city leaders have been tring to take Ok's water, they need it for all the future gas wells. With out it residence will face severe water restrictions. Plausible? I'm sure they will mask their water grab reason as "Necessary for continued economic growth".
They will say that the water used is only a small percentage of the overall water usage but the water industry uses is permanently removed from the hydrologic cycle.
27,216,000,000 gallons for fracking 3,000 wells. That’s almost half the volume of water in Lake Grapevine, which has a conservation level of 59,011,700,000 gallons, destroyed for eternity. How absolutely selfish and short-sighted can people be?
That's assuming they use the new 12 stage frack technology. They may not use 12 stages for each of those wells but still…
Sometimes they are going beyond 12 stages now. Both Devon and Chesapeake raised the number of frack stages in 2009. Unfortunately, Chesapeake increased fracks by 46% for only a 10% gain in production. That is even more waste of our water for very little in return.
THANK YOU, BARNETT SHALE… FOR BENZENE IN OUR AIR, WATER PERMANENTLY DESTROYED, AQUIFERS DEPLETED AND CONTAMINATED, EYESORES EVERYWHERE WE LOOK……….
I've heard over and over again from people who have worked in the drilling industry, "oh, fracking has been used for decades." And then when you point out that all of this is new…they don't believe it. I've been wanting to see a study like this that clarifies "fracking," and how new and different this gas well fracking is. Thank you for this, Sharon.
What's new is the VERTICAL fracking which occurs at deep locations. This vertical fracking damages cement on casing, collapses casing and couplings, and allow vertical migration of fracking chemicals vertically upwards to water acquifers. This new techniwue is unlike the old horrizonal fracking!!