Guide to Fracking- Oil and Gas

Fracking is also known as Hydraulic fracturing. It’s a process by which oil and gas companies stimulate the extraction of resources from the underground wells. 

The very first commercial application of fracking as a way to produce gas or oil took place either in Oklahoma or in Kansas in 1946. Since then, it has become a popular practice in this industry. Fracking has so far been used on more than a million wells worldwide.   

How does it work?

In fracking, a special pressurized liquid is injected- usually composed of sand, chemicals and waters-into an underground gas or oil-rich formation. This pressurized injection creates fractures in the rock which enables natural gas and oil to escape through an existing or new well.

Nowadays, fracking is quite common in shale formation. In the US and several other nations of the world, there is a range of underground shale formations that possess large amount of oil and natural gas.

Why fracking is needed?

Massive supply of oil and gas reserves is useless if it couldn’t be accessed. And fracking incredibly helps energy companies reach gas and oil reserves that would otherwise remain unused. Moreover, fracking also adds up to the life of older gas and oil wells that might have soon ceased production. 

Experts are of the view that within next decade, hydraulic fracturing will be indispensable to maintain 60 to 80 percent of all wells in the US in production.

Moreover Fracking is also combined with the horizontal drilling process, thus it’s even more effective way to take out fossil fuels.

A controversial method:

However, there are some issues regarding this method. Mostly, people are worried about the potential damage this method does to the environment.
The major issue is that this method contaminates drinking water supplies because it can be leaching poisonous chemicals and methane into the ground. 

According to a study, from the U.S. Department of Energy, fracturing and drilling a horizontal shale gas well can generally need anywhere from 2 to 4 million gallons of water. Contrary to this, the DOE has revealed that this amount is quite small compared to how much water is used in other industries such as agriculture.

Over and above, the fracking method also produces waste water that usually remains unused. And this adds up to the wastage of the water.

Between oil and gas fracking:

Generally, these two processes are quite alike. Some wells only contain oil, while others have oil, but there are also many reserves that include both fossil fuels.

However, the main difference is that most shale oil formations require being fracked only for once, whereas natural gas formations need multiple fracking processes to access the reserves.

Furthermore, according to EIA, there are fewer gas rigs in operation in comparison with oil rigs. As of Feb. 2013, there are only 426 natural gas rigs and1, 332 oil rigs existed in the US. Thereby, increasing the opportunities in investing in oil wells and making this industry –one of the best in keeping the world running!