Contemporary Technologies for Shale-Gas Water and Environmental Management

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OVERVIEW OF SHALE GAS WATER ISSUES

John A. Veil

Veil Environmental, LLC, Annapolis, Maryland, USA

john@veilenvironmental.com

ABSTRACT

Tens of thousands of wells are being drilled each year in several large gas shale formations in the United States. Shale gas development is also beginning in other countries and will likely increase rapidly. All U.S. shale gas wells must be fractured to allow sufficient gas to be produced to make the wells economically viable. In order to conduct fracturing operations, gas companies must obtain several million gallons (5,000 to 20,000 m³) of water for each well from local sources. In some areas, the available freshwater supplies are limited, creating a challenge for the gas companies. After the frac job is finished, a portion of the frac fluid that was injected returns to the surface over the next few days. This flowback water is considerably saltier than the original frac fluid, plus it often contains elevated concentrations of metals, radionuclides, and other contaminants. This paper describes the water needs for making up the frac fluids for each well and how the necessary volume compares with other existing water uses in those regions. The steps in the shale gas process in which water is used and wastewater is generated are discussed, with an emphasis on management of the flowback water and smaller volumes of ongoing produced water from the shale formation. Various chemical additives are mixed with water and proppants to make frac fluids. The paper describes the general categories of chemicals that are used and provides information on the Frac Focus chemical registry developed to provide public access to the names and quantities of chemicals actually used in the frac fluids for many U.S. shale gas wells.

KEYWORDS: shale gas, hydraulic fracturing, flowback water, produced water, Frac Focus

INTRODUCTION

Production of natural gas from shale formations has become among the fastest growing sectors of the oil and gas industry. Estimates published by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Energy Information Administration in January 2012 (EIA 2012) project that shale gas will steadily expand over the next 23 years and by 2035 will make up 49% of the U.S. gas production (see Figure 1). This projection is higher than last year’s projection of 45%.

Figure 1. Natural Gas Production by Source, 1990-2035 (trillion cubic feet). Source: EIA (2012). Note that 1 trillion cubic feet = 28.3 billion cubic meters.

Although the industry recognized that many shale formations held substantial quantities of natural gas, conventional vertical wells were unable to produce significant quantities of gas. Shale gas production expanded in the Barnett Shale in Texas during the late 1990s after producers began employing two technologies on each well: a) horizontal drilling to allow longer contact between the well bore and the shale rock; and b) hydraulic fracturing to develop a network of cracks in the shale rock that allowed the gas to move to the well.

After shale gas production was shown to be feasible in the Barnett Shale, producers moved to other U.S. formations including:

• the Fayetteville Shale in Arkansas,

• the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana,

• the Woodford Shale in Oklahoma,

• the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, New York, and West Virginia, Ohio, and Maryland,

• the Bakken Shale in North Dakota,

• the Eagle Ford Shale in south Texas, and

• the Utica Shale, which underlies much of the areal extent of the Marcellus but at greater depth.

A report commissioned by EIA and prepared by Advanced Resources International in spring 2011 surveyed other shale formations around the world to estimate their economic viability for natural gas production (ARI 2011). The report assessed 48 shale gas basins in 32 countries, containing almost 70 shale gas formations. These assessments cover the most prospective shale gas resources in a group of countries that demonstrate some level of relatively near-term promise and for basins that have a sufficient amount of geologic data for resource analysis. The report shows that the international shale gas resource base is vast. The initial estimate of technically recoverable shale gas resources in the 32 countries examined is 163 trillion m³ – more than six times higher than the current U.S. technically recoverable shale gas estimate. It is highly likely that shale gas production will expand to other countries over the next decade.

STEPS IN THE SHALE GAS PROCESS

Figure 2 lists eight steps that make up the process for developing and producing shale gas. The shaded boxes represent steps that involve water in some manner. Each of these is discussed in the following sections.

Figure 2. Steps in Shale Gas Production.

Preparing a Site

Before well drilling can begin, the company must clear vegetation, level enough land for the well pad, and construct a pad for the drilling rig and other equipment used in preparing the well. Drill pad sites are often located some distance from public roadways. Therefore, operators often must also construct an access road between the public road and the well site. Unless pitless drilling techniques are used, operators construct lined pits to hold drilling fluids and drill cuttings.

All of these excavation and grading activities expose soil to rainfall runoff. The operators take measures to minimize runoff by stabilizing the surface with gravel or other material. At some sites the center section of the pad, where the heavy equipment and wellhead are located, is covered with a geotextile liner material. Often ditches are constructed around the perimeter of the disturbed area to capture clean stormwater and move it around the site without becoming contaminated.

Drilling the Well

Shale gas wells are constructed with multiple layers of pipe known as casing. Shale gas wells are not drilled from top to bottom at the same diameter but rather in a series of progressively smaller-diameter intervals. First, a relatively large diameter hole is drilled from the surface down to about a 15-meter depth. This is lined with large casing called conductor pipe; the conductor pipe is cemented in place. Next, a smaller-diameter hole is drilled to a lower depth inside the previous string of casing. Another casing string is installed to that depth and cemented. This process may be repeated several more times. The final number of casing strings depends on the regulatory requirements in place at that location. It reflects the total depth of the well and the strength and sensitivity of the formations through which the well passes.

Nearly all shale gas wells use horizontal drilling. The well is drilled vertically until a few hundred meters above the shale formation. At that point, a drilling motor is placed on the leading end of the rotating drill string. The drilling motor gradually bends the well bore until the desired angle is reached. The horizontal section of the well can extend out more than 1,000 meters laterally from the vertical section of the well.

Water is required to make up the liquid component of the drilling fluid or mud that is used to lubricate the rotating drill bit. Drilling mud is pumped downward through the hollow drill pipe and exits through holes in the bit. The mud helps to convey the ground-up rock (drill cuttings) to the surface through the annular space between the drill pipe and the drilled hole. At the surface, the mixture of mud and cuttings is separated so that the liquid mud is recirculated back to the well for reuse. The drill cuttings are stored in a reserve pit for later disposal. There is a growing trend to move away from reserve pits and used closed-loop drilling systems with tanks to minimize surface and ground water impacts.

The Ground Water Protection Council and ALL Consulting (GWPC and ALL 2009) provide estimates of water requirements for four of the major shale gas plays. The water required for drilling a typical shale gas well is approximately 3,800 m³ in the Haynesville Shale, 1,500 m³ in the Barnett Shale, 225 m³ in the Fayetteville Shale, and 300 m³ in the Marcellus Shale. To the extent that gas companies move toward longer horizontal sections in the future, the volume of water needed for drilling is likely to increase.

Completing the Well – Perforation and Hydraulic Fracturing

A newly drilled well must be properly completed to allow natural gas to enter the well and move to the surface.

Perforation: The horizontal leg of the well running through the shale layer is surrounded by steel casing. In order to permit the natural gas to enter the well, openings must be made in the casing. The holes or perforations (perfs) are made in the casing using small explosive charges that are lowered to the desired depth on a cable. The perfs allow gas to enter the well. After creating the perfs, the well is hydraulically fractured to allow gas to flow from the formation into the well.

Hydraulic Fracturing: Because shale gas is held within the nonporous shale rock, it is necessary to fracture the shale so that the gas has a conduit or pathway to move from the shale to a production well. The process injects water, sand, and several types of additives at very high pressure into the well. The high pressure creates small fractures in the rock that extend out as 300 meters laterally away from the well. The vertical extent varies but is related to the thickness of the shale layer.

Rather than fracturing the entire horizontal leg at one time, it is done in stages of several hundred meters in length, starting with the section of the well farthest from the vertical portion of the well. Each stage is kept under pressure for only a few hours. In recent years, the newer wells tend to have longer horizontal sections, and the subsequent fracturing work is done in more stages.

After the pressure is reduced at the end of each stage, pressure is held on the well and a plug is set to isolate that fractured interval and allow fracturing of the next stage. This process is repeated for all stages. When the well is ready to be brought on production, the plugs are drilled out. Some fraction of the water used to fracture the well flows back to the surface, but most of the sand grains remain in the rock fractures, effectively propping the fractures open and allowing the gas to move. Hydraulic fracturing is done on nearly all shale gas wells; without it, the wells could not produce sufficient natural gas to be commercially viable.

Water Needed for Hydraulic Fracturing: One of the more contentious issues surrounding shale gas development is the need for new water supplies to fracture each new well. The water required for fracturing a typical shale gas well is approximately 5 million gallons (roughly 20,000 m³). Most of the new wells being drilled have longer horizontal sections and more stages; therefore, the current volume of water needed is probably higher than those estimates.

Many operators truck fresh water either directly to a well site or to a regional water storage impoundment. In the latter case, water is pumped from regional impoundments to the well site when the fracturing work is ready to begin. Incoming water is mixed with sand and additives in onsite tanks then is injected underground.

Although many gas companies are reusing their wastewater to make up new frac fluids, still a substantial volume of new water is needed to fracture each well. The following analysis shows estimates made for the Marcellus Shale in a hypothetical high development year. In order to estimate the total amount of water needed for the Marcellus Shale region, the volume of water required to fracture one well must be multiplied by the anticipated number of wells that will be drilled in a year. The maximum number of wells estimated for each of the states in the following section is an educated guess that may prove to be inaccurate. However, the analysis provides at least an order-of-magnitude estimate.

Table 1 shows the estimated maximum number of wells that are likely to be drilled in each state in a year. For Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the number shown represents the highest number of wells actually drilled in any of the past several years (obtained from state agency data bases) multiplied by a factor of two to extrapolate to a hypothetical maximum value. New York has not drilled Marcellus Shale wells in the past few years. Therefore, the number calculated for West Virginia was used as a placeholder value for New York. A volume of 20,000 m³ was assumed for each well.

Table 1 – Cumulative Regional Estimate of Water Needs under Hypothetical Maximum Drilling Conditions

These numbers are subject to various caveats however:

• The estimates of maximum wells drilled could significantly overestimate or underestimate the actual quantity. Many factors, such as the sales price of natural gas, can influence actual drilling rates.

• The assumed maximum number in one state will not necessarily correspond to the maximum in each of the other states.

• As gas companies refine and improve their efforts to recycle and reuse flowback and produced water from wells already fractured, the water needed per well may decrease.

• Conversely, if operators drill longer horizontal wells with more frac stages, the volume per well could increase.

The total water volume must be placed in context to the total water resources available within the three-state area as well as to other existing and competing uses. The U.S. Geological Survey publishes water use estimates for the United States every five years. The most recent report (Kenny et al. 2009) reports on water use for 2005. Table 2 shows the 2005 water withdrawal volumes for New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia by water-use category.

Table 2 – Water Withdrawals for Marcellus Shale States – 2005 (million m³/day)

Table 3 compares the estimated future water withdrawals for shale gas production with the 2005 actual water withdrawals from Kenny et al. (2009).

Table 3 – Comparison of Water Needed for Shale Gas and Total Existing Water Withdrawals

Although the daily volume of water needed for shale gas purposes is substantial, when compared to the existing withdrawals of water for other purposes, it is just a fraction of one percent. Similar calculations were performed for the Fayetteville Shale. The resulting percentage there was about 0.6%.

This suggests that at least from a regional perspective, the water requirements for Marcellus Shale and Fayetteville Shale gas development can be accommodated. However, in local watersheds, the incremental water demand for gas wells may create supply concerns. Water may not be available in every location or on every stream tributary, nor will it be available during every week of the year. To ensure a sustainable and available supply, the gas companies must use good advanced planning to withdraw water from rivers when flows are high and store the water until needed for fracturing. Typically this requires the construction of local or regional fresh water storage impoundments.

The two large shale