What is horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing?
Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have become the industry standard for extracting natural gas from shale formations. The majority of wells in the Marcellus Shale will be drilled hroizontally and be hydraulically fractured. Horizontal drilling was developed in the 1980’s in the Barnett shale region in north central Texas. A horizontal well is drilled down vertically to approximately 500 feet above the target gas-bearing rock formation. Special tools are then used to curve the well bore so that the hole is swings horizontally within the gas-bearing rock for up to several thousand feet. Horizontal drilling allows companies to extract more gas in a cost-effective manner. In many cases, multiple wells may be drilled side by side on the same well pad, radiating out in different directions. Hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracing’consists of pumping a fluid and a propping material such as sand down the well bore under high pressure to create fractures in the shale. The propping material
