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Hydraulic Fracturing Accounts for Most Natural Gas Production in the U.S. Adapted from Information by the U.S. Energy Information Administration Although hydraulic fracturing has been used for over 60 years, over the past ten years, hydraulic fracturing has become the number one technique used in the production of natural gas in the United States. According to the most recent data from states, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates two-thirds of U.S. natural gas production comes from from hydraulically fractured wells. This share of production is even greater than the share of crude oil produced using that method, where hydraulic fracturing accounts for about half of current U.S. crude oil production. Hydraulic fracturing, often combined with horizontal directional drilling, involves forcing a fluid (primarily water) under high pressure from a wellbore against a rock formation until it fractures. The fracture lengthens as the high-pressure liquid in the wellbore flows into the formation. This injected liquid contains a prop- pant, or small, solid par- ticles (usually sand), which fills the expand- ing fracture. When the injection is stopped and the pressure is reduced, the formation attempts to settle back into its original configuration, but the proppant keeps the fractures open. This allows hydrocarbons to flow from the rock formation back to the wellbore, and then to the surface. EIA created a profile of marketed natural gas production using well completion and production data from IHS Global Insight and DrillingInfo Inc., which indicates a substantial increase in production associated with hydraulic fracturing. In 2000, there were ap- proximately 26,000 hydraulically fractured wells which produced 3.6 billion cubic per day (Bcf/d) of marketed gas in the United States, less than 7% of the national total. By 2015, the number of hydraulically fractured wells grew to an estimated 300,000, and production from those wells had increased to more than 53 Bcf/d, making up about 67% of the total natural gas output of the United States. EIA measures natural gas production in three ways: Gross withdrawals are the full volume of compounds extracted at the wellhead. This includes all natural gas liquids and nonhydrocarbon gases after the oil, lease condensate, and water have been removed. Marketed natural gas production excludes natural gas used for repressur- ing the well, vented and flared gas, and any nonhydrocarbon gases. Marketed gas is processed into dry natural gas, also known as consumer- grade natural gas. This process involves not only extracting valuable hydrocarbon gas liquids such as ethane and propane, but also removing impurities such as water vapor and noncombustible gases which would interfere with pipeline operations or end-use applications. Natural gas production from hydraulic fracturing has primarily come from shale and other tight rocks in the Marcellus and Utica formations of theAppalachian Basin; the Bakken Formation in Montana and North Dakota; the Eagle Ford Formation in Texas; and the stacked Permian Basin Formations in Texas and New Mexico. '6 2'& $*32 (1/- : 3/ : ! 5'1 $*32 *. 23/%+ (/1 *, #2 !#3'1 !',, '/3)'1-#, 70,/1#3*/. /.2314%3*/. '3% $*32 )#--'12 #.& )#--'1 $*32 3#$* , *9'12 *. #.8 2*9' #.8 %/..'%3*/. /,' /0'.'12 '$4*,&" )/,' /0'.'1 '13*%#, /1*9/.3#, /1 4$2 6*3) #.8 %/..'%3*/. 4$ #&#03/12 -#&' 3/ (*3 " .''&2 & ' +-* -( &/ #-+*/&"- +) "(( %+*" 3 222 -( &/ +) +0- 2&#" (("! .%" . &! 5 /7. #+- 4+0 /+ 04 (( +# 4+0- &/. *! !-&((&*$ .0,,(&". #-+) &/ "-1& " 6 17 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® NOVEMBER 2016