Shale Gas - A New Chance to be Energy Independent!

Over the past 40 years, America has become more and more dependent on foreign sources of energy -- especially crude oil.  We can't do anything to control the price, and we have put our whole nation at risk to ensure the supply.  We have paid a bigger price than simply the money it costs to heat our homes and run our automobiles.  The hidden costs are the lives of our soldiers and our Allies that are traded to far-flung corners of the earth to ensure the stream of hydrocarbons keeps flowing.  We need an Energy Policy in America that works toward the creation of new American jobs, and results in a clean, long-lasting supply of cheaper energy that is much Greener than what we are using now.

Over the past 30 years, a story has quietly been unfolding in America.  It started in Texas, but it spread out to cover most areas of the country.  It's the story of Shale Gas.  It sounds a little boring.  Well, that depends on whether you would prefer to ride or walk.  Or, more seriously, whether you would rather send your children off to to foreign lands to fight a war for energy, rather than find and develop what you already have right in your own back yard.

Here's a common, ordinary rock often seen at the surface of the earth.  It's the most common sedimentary rock of all.  It's called shale.

We Now Have The Potential!

Since we started drilling on a large-scale basis for hyrocarbons well over a century ago, we have drilled through a heck of a lot of shale in search of conventional oil and gas reservoirs.  We had to drill through 95% shale in order to reach the "good" reservoir rocks containing oil and gas, namely sandstones and porous limestones.

Though gas has been produced from shales for a long time (mainly in the Appalachian Basin), the wells were generally weak, and barely economic.  A well might make only 200-300 million cubic feet of gas over a 50-year lifespan.  That's not much gas for an expensive hole.

But much has changed since the early 1980's.  Shale gas wells are being drilled now that may make several billion cubic feet (or more) of gas over their lifetime!  During the 1980's, a company called Mitchell Energy embarked on a quest to make shale gas pay.  Just north of Fort Worth, Texas, the company started a program to test the Barnett Shale, and make it economic.  Years of careful drilling and research into horizontal drilling and new hydraulic fracturing techniques finally paid off.  By 2002, there were over 1500 completions in the Barnett Shale.  This success started a new wave of natural gas shale-drilling, with many new basins being explored for shale gas (see map below)

The Map below shows the location of the major shale gas areas in the United States.  Click the map for a much larger view (large file, 1 MB)

Look at the picture below.  Gas-rich shales are the source rock for many hydrocarbons.  We have been drilling on a large scale for the "conventional" types of oil and gas targets for well over a century.  Note the two "conventional" traps in the diagram; the one on the left side is structural, the one on the right is a combination stratigraphic/structural trap.  But the well penetrating the "gas-rich shale" is a new type of technology.   Why is it different?

1) When the drill bit reaches the shale, the hole is turned so that he bit bores horizontally, or near-horizontally, through the shale deposit.  This is called geosteering.

2) Tremendous advances in the last 20 years in the field of hydraulic fracturing (fracking, or fracing) enable gas to be produced from formerly near-impermeable shale reservoirs.  A typical "frac job" in such a reservoir might consist of 1-2 million gallons of water and 50-100 thousand pounds of sand.  This large "frack" may extensively break down the area around a borehole that is up to 5,000 feet long (Fracing is not new, but the news organizations would have you believe it is).

3) Natural Shale Gas is an abundant, clean-burning natural resource that we control, right here in our own country, a truly widespread resource that can provide new jobs to a new generation, and break our dependence on foreign oil!

The new advances in shale-gas technology mean that the US now has the potential to become energy-independent, for the first time in many years.  Natural gas can be applied to any energy-needy situation, from heating our homes to powering our automobiles.  With a new push toward shale-gas technology, we can free ourselves from imported oil to create a safer, cleaner, energy alternative.