This is a technology involving the use of slick water, pumped deep down into the earth at high pressure to release gas and oil from shale rock. Slick water is water with some specific amounts of ‘proppant’ a sand-like material and other chemicals that help reduce water friction.
- Natural gas or shale gas molecules and non-traditional oil can be found trapped in very tiny pockets within shale formations very deep down the earth’s surface .
- These tiny fissures can be as small as 1mm in diameter. The process begins with drilling vertically down and then horizontally for many more miles.
- After this, the slick water is pumped in the wells and tiny cracks and spaces in the shale rock are forced to widen.
- The sand-like materials hold the widened spaces open for the gas to be released and sucked up to the surface.
Fracking is a newer technology, compared to the traditional oil and gas drilling. It has become very common in the USA, and many of the natural gas plants use this process. The U.S. government estimates that as many as 15 billion barrels of oil could lie within the formation, but most of it is not retrievable without fracking.
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