WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th June, 2019) Horizontal drilling, a fracking- friendly technique that allows the shafts of oil and gas wells to snake between layers of rock, now accounts for nearly all US production in what are known as tight shale oil formations, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a report on Thursday.
"In 2004, horizontal wells accounted for about 15 percent of US crude oil production in tight oil formations. By the end of 2018, that percentage had increased to 96 percent," the report said. "Similarly, horizontal wells made up about 14 percent of US natural gas production in shale formations in 2004 and increased to 97 percent in 2018.
The EIA explained that drilling horizontally, parallel to the geologic layers in tight formations, allows producers to access more of the oil- and natural gas-bearing rock than drilling vertically.
This increased exposure allows additional fracking with greater water volumes and Pounds of proppant, which consists of small, solid particles, usually sand or a man-made granular solid of similar size, the report said.
Because tight formations have very low permeability, which prevents oil and gas from moving toward the well bore, using hydraulic fracturing to increase permeability, along with horizontal drilling, is necessary for oil and gas to be produced from these formations economically, report added.
Fracking of shale formations in the US states of Texas, New Mexico and North Dakota, as well as along the Appalachian Mountains in the Eastern United States, account for most of increased oil and gas production that have made the US a leading global producer of fossil fuels, according to previous EIA reports.
