What is Marcellus Shale gas?
What is Marcellus Shale gas?
According to the USGS assessment, the Marcellus Shale contains about 84 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 3.4 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas liquids.
What is Marcellus Shale made of?
The Marcellus is black rock shale that formed in deep ocean waters containing very little oxygen. Like all shales, the Marcellus is a sedimentary rock formed from mud and composed of fine-grained material such as clay, quartz, organic matter and other minerals.
What chemicals are in shale gas?
Shale gas is natural gas trapped within tiny pore spaces in shale formations. It is a hydrocarbon gas mixture. It consists mainly of methane. Other hydrocarbons are natural gas liquids (NGLs) like ethane, propane, and butane, and it also contains carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and hydrogen sulfide.
What does natural gas have to do with Marcellus Shale?
The natural gas is trapped in low-permeability shale, and requires the well completion method of hydraulic fracturing to allow the gas to flow to the well bore. The surge in drilling activity in the Marcellus Shale since 2008 has generated both economic benefits and considerable controversy.
Why do humans want to drill in the Marcellus Shale?
2) Why is the Marcellus Shale gas extraction suddenly important for natural gas production? The combination of advances in drilling and fracturing technology, the large volume of natural gas reserves, and its proximity to eastern cities have made the Marcellus Shale an important resource.
Why is the Marcellus Shale important?
New devel- opments in drilling technology, along with higher wellhead prices, have made the Marcellus Shale an important natural gas resource. The production of com- mercial quantities of gas from this shale requires large volumes of water to drill and hydraulically fracture the rock.
Why is Marcellus Shale important?
This shale contains significant quantities of natural gas. New devel- opments in drilling technology, along with higher wellhead prices, have made the Marcellus Shale an important natural gas resource.
How long does a Marcellus Shale well produce?
30 to 50 years
Marcellus Shale gas wells are expected to produce for 30 to 50 years, and perhaps much longer.
How long does a shale gas well produce?
When looking at the lifetime of a shale well, production is often referred to as the estimated ultimate recovery (EUR). Implied in the term EUR is a lifetime of a well, and although most shale wells are still relatively young, analysts generally look at a 20-30 year lifetime for a shale well.