If you live in Pennsylvania, you could be living on a “gold mine.”
The Marcellus Shale is capable of providing jobs and financial support for the people and the state of Pennsylvania. If the state works accordingly to the advantages of drilling into the shale, the results would positively impact the economy.
The Marcellus Shale is a formation of marine sedimentary rock, found thousands of feet below the Earth’s surface, that contains natural gas reserves. In Pennsylvania, the shale ranges from the southwest to the northeastern area of the state. The shale also stretches among areas of West Virginia, Ohio, New York, Maryland and Virginia.
Drilling areas are determined by the depth and thickness of the shale, and thicker shale often holds greater amounts of gas.
Recent interest in the Marcellus Shale stems from the development of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. Hydraulic fracturing is a technique that is used to increase the amount of gas that is produced from a single formation. During the fracturing process, thousands of gallons of water are used as pressure to crack the formation. The water then seeps through the cracks to gather oil and gas.
In my opinion, the Marcellus Shale is comparable to the Barnett Shale in Texas. The Barnett Shale is arguably the largest onshore natural gas field in the United States. Like the Marcellus Shale, new improvements such as horizontal drilling have contributed to making the shale more accessible.
Vertical wells normally occupy no more than one acre of surface during the drilling process, whereas horizontal wells may need up to five acres. Horizontal wells blast down into the Marcellus Shale vertically, and then spread horizontally through the shale in several directions. The horizontal wells are capable of gathering oil and gas components from thousands of feet away from the surface well site.
The ability to drill horizontally has allowed for more gas to be gathered by a single well while causing less of a disturbance to the land. Horizontal wells make it easier for geologists to negotiate with the landowners about the placement of a well.
