CKC1586
Well-known member
Could someone please explain to me in lay terms what the heck is fracking, what damage does it do to the water table, is it a permanent effect??? Thanks
Fracking
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M.Magis
Well-known member
It's the process if injecting fluid deep into the earth to cause fractures, releasing oil/gas deposits. It's done at many thousands of feet below the water table, and the hole is incased in multiple layers of concrete and steel, so there should never be any damage to the water table. I can't say it's never happened, but I'm not sure how it would happen.
There are people here much more knowledgeable than me on the subject, they will probably be more helpful.
There are people here much more knowledgeable than me on the subject, they will probably be more helpful.
GMN
Well-known member
It pays alot of money but is dangerous, hard work
Caustic Burno
Well-known member
M.Magis":a3pvb7wa said:
Nothing is impossible but from what I know of the technology it isn't going to have any effect.
We have a frack well every 3000 feet. There is 3000 ft between each well. No one has complainded so far.
A lot would have to do with the depth as well. There are areas of East Texas you can't drill a water well without having problems due to the depth of the pool. Area's like Sour Lake or Saratoga the water smells like Hydrogen Sulfide(rotten eggs). It was that way before the first oil well was every driled in Texas.
Red Bull Breeder
Well-known member
A bit different the hills here. They done a lot of fracking just south of me and had a lot of earth quakes. Stopped the fracking and stopped the earth quakes. Don't know about the ground water.
dieselbeef
Well-known member
haha..the water here 6 ft down smells like sulfur caustic
MrHillsdown
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Whether or not your waterwell could be damaged depends on a lot of factors. At what depth is the hydrocarbon bearing formation that is to be fracked in relation to the depth of your water well? Where is the surface casing landed? Was the cementjob succesfull on both the surface casing and the production casing? After the well is drilled and cased, cement is pumped down the casing and back up the annulus between the casing and the open hole. This serves two critical purposes: it isolates different formations from each other outside the casing (including your aquifer) and it supports the casing. What's important here is that the surface casing is landed deep enough to cover your aquifer and that it is cemented properly to prevent hydrocarbons to come to surface outside the casing. Also, are they hydraulically fracturing or are they using Nitrogen to break the formation? Nitrogen is typically used on coalbed formations and are usually a lot closer to the surface increasing the risk of contaminating your well. However, in todays oilpatch here in Western Canada most drilling is done in shale formations at greater depths and horizontally. This means that they drill vertically for a distance and then veer off horizontally into the shale. So this means that just because there is a wellhead in your backyard, the oil or gas producing section of the well might be a mile or more away from your waterwell. What I would do in your case is to have a sample of your water analyzed prior to the well being drilled. Also I would ask the oilcompany for a welldiagram, cement data , results of the surface casing vent test and a cement bond log. They don't have to give you this stuff, but none of it is exactly topsecret in that it would reveal proprietary data pertaining to the hydrocarbon bearing zones they are producing. If they do give it to you, you can forward it on to HD and we'll have a looksie.
backhoeboogie
Well-known member
They are fracturing the shale formation here at 6500 feet, give or take. My newest water well is 630 feet deep or about 6000 feet above the shale.
The shale already contains cracks and fissures. Nothing different than limestone layers on the ground. Just not very big cracks.
A guy in my neighborhood invented modern day "fracing" (fracturing). What they do is pressurize the shale beds and crack them and lift them with a whole lot of pressure. Then they blow sand into these cracks/fissures. When pressure is removed, the sand granules keep the cracks open such that hydrocarbons (natural gas mostly here) can pass through these cracks.
That is the simplest way I know to express it. Fracturing is not new. Blowing sand into the cracks and fissures is the new technology that enables our shale to be productive.
They have been drilling three wells horizontally through the shale and fracturing all three simultaneously. This does a much better job on these shale beds versus the old one well method. Over doing it results in water flow (salt water) and that's about all you get out of the shale beds. These wells generally wind up capped and it is a loss. So you don't want to over do it.
No earth quakes in my town yet but some near by. I don't view these little trimmers as earthquakes. They are nothing like the trimmers I experienced daily in Alaska when I was a kid. I survived the Good Friday '64 earthquake in Alaska when Mt Redoubt blew. Hence, these little ground trimmers are not earthquakes in my opinion. They are less than what I experienced there almost daily/weekly.
The shale already contains cracks and fissures. Nothing different than limestone layers on the ground. Just not very big cracks.
A guy in my neighborhood invented modern day "fracing" (fracturing). What they do is pressurize the shale beds and crack them and lift them with a whole lot of pressure. Then they blow sand into these cracks/fissures. When pressure is removed, the sand granules keep the cracks open such that hydrocarbons (natural gas mostly here) can pass through these cracks.
That is the simplest way I know to express it. Fracturing is not new. Blowing sand into the cracks and fissures is the new technology that enables our shale to be productive.
They have been drilling three wells horizontally through the shale and fracturing all three simultaneously. This does a much better job on these shale beds versus the old one well method. Over doing it results in water flow (salt water) and that's about all you get out of the shale beds. These wells generally wind up capped and it is a loss. So you don't want to over do it.
No earth quakes in my town yet but some near by. I don't view these little trimmers as earthquakes. They are nothing like the trimmers I experienced daily in Alaska when I was a kid. I survived the Good Friday '64 earthquake in Alaska when Mt Redoubt blew. Hence, these little ground trimmers are not earthquakes in my opinion. They are less than what I experienced there almost daily/weekly.
TexasBred
Well-known member
MrHillsdown":tzirxf9l said:
Mr. HD...here in Texas those are all available on the Texas Railroad Commission site. One page in particular shows every little wobble and bobble of the drill bit especially as they drill the horizontal section. Boogie some of the wells now are going on down to 9000 feet and I'm "Told" that the shale has the consistency of a bowling ball....pretty dam solid but referred to as shale.
Caustic Burno
Well-known member
TB the test well they drilled on my lease was 15,000 feet. It became a test well as they ran into prssures the rig couldn't handle. Supposed to have a big enough rig this spring to drill.
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=86754
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=86754
Ill give this a shot... 
If you draw a picture of a straw going in to the earth that is the vertical part of the well. As some point it turns and lays horizontal. Lets say at 9,000' deep they are laying horizontal. Then they may drill 5,000' horizontal. In that 5,000' leg they perforate it multiple, multiple times. So they shoot holes in the pipe out side ways... Plane Frac. Looks like a board going out horizontal, from horizontal leg. A good zone will have really hard materials above and below it so the frac plane can keep running side ways. They will have different stages where they are pumping fluid and sand at different rates. Kind of like shifting gears. If it blows out vertically they lose pressure and have to stop.
The sand is pushed in under pressure to form a wedge and hold the fractures (cracks) open.
If it does not take the sand or the sand comes back you end up with a big mess and it can be very dangerous. This sand coming back at you with #8K behind it will cut out pipe, chokes, any thing faster than you can shut it down. Some times it comes back and some times it has to be washed out with coil tubing. It can also come back over time and cut out production equipment.
In Texas you have to do casing integretity tests (H15) to prove you layers of casing and cement are holding below the water zones.
The only danger to you water table is it requires a lot of water to do this. That is typically pumped from wells near the well. In low rain fall years with a lot of fracing going on you could use more water than is going back in.
If you draw a picture of a straw going in to the earth that is the vertical part of the well. As some point it turns and lays horizontal. Lets say at 9,000' deep they are laying horizontal. Then they may drill 5,000' horizontal. In that 5,000' leg they perforate it multiple, multiple times. So they shoot holes in the pipe out side ways... Plane Frac. Looks like a board going out horizontal, from horizontal leg. A good zone will have really hard materials above and below it so the frac plane can keep running side ways. They will have different stages where they are pumping fluid and sand at different rates. Kind of like shifting gears. If it blows out vertically they lose pressure and have to stop.
The sand is pushed in under pressure to form a wedge and hold the fractures (cracks) open.
If it does not take the sand or the sand comes back you end up with a big mess and it can be very dangerous. This sand coming back at you with #8K behind it will cut out pipe, chokes, any thing faster than you can shut it down. Some times it comes back and some times it has to be washed out with coil tubing. It can also come back over time and cut out production equipment.
In Texas you have to do casing integretity tests (H15) to prove you layers of casing and cement are holding below the water zones.
The only danger to you water table is it requires a lot of water to do this. That is typically pumped from wells near the well. In low rain fall years with a lot of fracing going on you could use more water than is going back in.
Caustic Burno
Well-known member
Brute 23":1fze441p said:Ill give this a shot...
If you draw a picture of a straw going in to the earth that is the vertical part of the well. As some point it turns and lays horizontal. Lets say at 9,000' deep they are laying horizontal. Then they may drill 5,000' horizontal. In that 5,000' leg they perforate it multiple, multiple times. So they shoot holes in the pipe out side ways... Plane Frac. Looks like a board going out horizontal, from horizontal leg. A good zone will have really hard materials above and below it so the frac plane can keep running side ways. They will have different stages where they are pumping fluid and sand at different rates. Kind of like shifting gears. If it blows out vertically they lose pressure and have to stop.
The sand is pushed in under pressure to form a wedge and hold the fractures (cracks) open.
If it does not take the sand or the sand comes back you end up with a big mess and it can be very dangerous. This sand coming back at you with #8K behind it will cut out pipe, chokes, any thing faster than you can shut it down. Some times it comes back and some times it has to be washed out with coil tubing. It can also come back over time and cut out production equipment.
In Texas you have to do casing integretity tests (H15) to prove you layers of casing and cement are holding below the water zones.
The only danger to you water table is it requires a lot of water to do this. That is typically pumped from wells near the well. In low rain fall years with a lot of fracing going on you could use more water than is going back in.
You are dead on about the water usage, during the height of the drought here they had to start trucking in water as they were pulling the wells to low. They were pulling it out of the creek down the road from me. Had a billboard of permits hanging on it. There is a water well on every drill site.
Caustic Burno":s5grv9zi said:
We have drilled several test wells like that also down to around the 20K mark.
With all this technology there are still areas here in Texas that have been drilled and they pull the rig off because it could not handle it. I know of one where they set a plug and came up because they said even if they could drill thru it the infrastructure is not in place to handle what it would move. Plus it would be very costly to set up. This was a major company.
ohiosteve
Well-known member
This has been an interesting read. I am far from an expert, but have been around many frack jobs. Mrhillsdown is right on the money about the cement job being crucial. The multiple well casings (Conductor casing, surface casing, and production casing), along with each casing being cemented in place insure that the production stratus is completely isolated from any zone above it and is completely contained within the production casing. Seeing the relation between the depth of the water table and the depth of the production stratus will help to ease most peoples minds as well.
greybeard
Well-known member
Ya ever smell the water that flows from the artesian well on 1960 in Humble? smells like h2s as well, and it's been flowing for many many decades-since the early 1900s..Caustic Burno":3irl1ew8 said:
Did you know there used to be a hot artesian well in Houston?--out where 290 and Hempstead come together. Had a big hot swimming pool and bath houses in the 50s. The only geothermal well in thios part of the state and the City forced the owner to dynamite it.
Caustic Burno
Well-known member
Never knew about the 290 well. What is funny right out of Rye there is several artesian wells with some of the best sweet water ever. Drive a few miles east and it is not fit for consumption.
OP
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CKC1586
Well-known member
Thank you thank you , everyone!!! Think I will quit worrying about what they are doing (proposing to do ) ten miles from me..... :tiphat: :wave:
OP
OP
CKC1586
Well-known member
OP
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CKC1586
Well-known member
dieselbeef
Well-known member
antone near any mining will have issues like these. down here its mosaic phosphate. they get into the water table and alot of the same issues.
we were at a mtg once about the expansion of the mine and a woman had brought 5 1 gallon containers. one for ea rep of mosaic. the cty reps were also present at the same table. gave them all one and told them it was the drinking water from her well and to have some. 15 ft away at the table i could smell it soon as they opened it..it was awful. not a natural smell..like acetone.
didnt start the mtg off right. i think the expansion went ahead but it hasnt been mined yet..that was about 10 yrs ago maybe...economy didnt dictate the need i guess yet
we were at a mtg once about the expansion of the mine and a woman had brought 5 1 gallon containers. one for ea rep of mosaic. the cty reps were also present at the same table. gave them all one and told them it was the drinking water from her well and to have some. 15 ft away at the table i could smell it soon as they opened it..it was awful. not a natural smell..like acetone.
didnt start the mtg off right. i think the expansion went ahead but it hasnt been mined yet..that was about 10 yrs ago maybe...economy didnt dictate the need i guess yet
