Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 8 Resource requirements per well under Cuadrilla development scenarios.
48
Resources use per well
Wells
1
Well pads
0.1 (i.e. 10 wells per pad)
Well pad area (ha)
0.7
Water volume (m
3
)
8399
Fracturing chemicals volume (m
3
)
3.7
Cuttings volume (m
3
)
138
Incorporating data from Table 7
Low Estimate
High Estimate
Flowback fluid volume (m
3
)
1232
6627
Total duration of surface activities
pre production (days)
83
250
Total truck visits
719
1098
Table 9 Resource requirements to deliver 9 bcm per year for 20 years.
Assuming a single re-fracturing
on 50% of wells (delivering an
assumed 25% increase in
productivity for those wells)
Assuming no
re-fracturing
Wells
2970
2592
Well pads
297
259
Cuttings volume (m
3
)
409 365
357 264
Water volume (m
3
)
24 945 030
32 655 312
Fracturing chemicals
volume (m
3
)
10 989
14 386
Low
High
Low
High
Flowback fluid volume (m
3
)
3 658 604
19 680 768
4 789 446
25 763 915
Total truck visits
2 135 925
3 262 050
2 732 400
4 132 080
rapidly, the figure in reality would have to be considerably greater to
take account of the decline in production, with new wells having to come
online or existing wells re-fractured. Over a 20-year period, between
2600 and 3000 wells would need to be developed to deliver a sustained
annual output of 9 bcm. This equates to between 260 and 300 well pads,
assuming that 10 wells can be drilled and hydraulically fractured from each
well pad.
To put this into context, the DECC in 2010 identified that only 2000 wells
had been drilled in total in the UK, with about 25 onshore wells drilled per
year in the UK in the last decade.
Based on the information from Cuadrilla and the US, Table 9 provides the
total resources required in the UK for production of 9 bcm of shale gas,
which represents 10% of the annual UK gas consumption in 2010.
