WHERE - Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know - page 27

Energy Information Administration
While there are numerous plays spread out across the country, the top few rep-
resent the majority of land and have attracted the largest drilling and development
investment, which totaled more than $54 billion in 2012. 5 These plays are focused
on oil or liquid gas, with the exception of the Marcellus, where the majority of
wells are dry gas completions. (As mentioned in the fossil fuel primer in chapter 1 ,
“dry” gas is pure methane.)
The major plays in the United States include the following: 6
Anadarko-Woodford : Located in west-central Oklahoma, this play runs through
the Anadarko Basin, at some 11,500 to 14,500 feet deep. It contains crude oil
and liquid gas, and the average cost of drilling and completing a well there was
$8.5 million in 2012.
Bakken : Covering some 200,000 square miles beneath parts of Montana, North
Dakota, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, this organic-rich, low-permeability
formation contains the largest known oil reservoir in the continental United
States: an estimated 3.6 billion barrels of oil, 1.85 trillion cubic feet of natural
gas, and 148 million barrels of natural gas liquids, according to the US Geolo-
gical Survey. The play is relatively thin and runs from a depth of 3,000 feet to