WHERE - Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know - page 30

Permian Basin : Extending 300 miles long and 250 miles wide and located under
New Mexico and west Texas, the Permian has been drilled for oil with conven-
tional rigs since 1925. The formation is filled with Paleozoic sediments, and
has one of the world's thickest rock deposits from the Permian geologic period
(dating to some 290 million years ago). Today this play is undergoing a renais-
sance thanks to hydrofracking. It has been estimated that the Permian Basin is
rich, with a single formation—the Spraberry—holding 500 million barrels of
unconventional oil and five trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Utica Shale : Lying 3,000 to 7,000 feet beneath the Marcellus Shale, the Utica form-
ation is one of the largest natural gas fields in the world. Stretching from Que-
bec and Ontario in Canada down through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and
West Virginia, it also underlies parts of Kentucky, Maryland, Tennessee, and
Virginia. The Utica play is estimated to hold some 1.3 to 5.5 billion barrels of
oil and about 3.8 to 15.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The Utica Shale is
organic-rich calcareous black shale dating to the Late Ordovician period (460
million years ago). It has a high carbonate content and a low clay mineral con-
tent, making the Utica rock more brittle than the Marcellus Shale. This re-
quires different hydrofracking strategies and makes Utica wells more expens-
ive to develop than those in the shallower Marcellus formation. Experts con-
sider the Utica “a resource of the distant future.”
Woodford : Lying beneath most of Oklahoma, the Woodford Shale has complex
mineralogy and geology, which makes drilling a challenge. This play has pro-
duced oil and gas since the 1930s, and the first horizontal wells were drilled
there in 2004. Today, some 2,000 wells are in production there, including over
1,500 horizontal wells.
Where Is Hydrofracking Restricted?
In spite of the riches buried in the shale plays listed above, hydrofracking can
be geologically, technically, and economically challenging. But an even greater
obstacle might be citizen and environmental opposition to the controversial pro-
cess. While advances in drilling techniques and the types of chemicals used have
dramatically changed the scenarios for fracking, lawsuits have challenged the Bur-
eau of Land Management's leasing of federal lands to energy companies. 7 Con-
cerns about hydrofracking's impact on global warming, endangered species, wild-