The Anticipated Future of Natural Gas Energy 

Approximately 400 million years ago during the Middle Devonian age, organic matter collected at the bottom of a vast, anoxic, prehistoric sea in a fine, mud-like material. As the Earth changed, life progressed, the continents shifted and the sea that once covered parts of the Eastern United States subsided. The massive collection that held the simple plants and organisms from well before the dinosaur ages hardened, trapping incredible amounts of natural gas left by the decomposing organic matter. Today, this formation is an organic-rich black shale more commonly known as the Marcellus Shale. It underlies large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and New York, with small areas existing in Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland and Kentucky. This shale is similar to the well-known Barnett Shale of Texas in classification and due to a similar, trapped natural resource. Geologists have known about the Marcellus Shale’s large natural gas deposits for quite some time, estimating them to be as high as 516 trillion cubic feet; however, standard vertical drilling technology could not fully access the resource potential within the shale, that is, until very recently.

Vertical fractures within the Marcellus Shale hold natural gas deposits; therefore, drilling a standard vertical well vastly limits the frequency of intersection with a large number of the fractures, decreasing the chance and volume of gas that is able to be retrieved. A change came with the advent of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques within the Marcellus Shale, techniques that have allowed natural gas companies to access the resource with impressive, yet currently limited, success.

Horizontal drilling, simply put, is a method wherein a well may be drilled to a certain depth, then turned at a 90-degree angle and drilled further into the medium. Drilling perpendicular to the shale, then making the right-angle turn to drill parallel, intersects a maximum number of gas-storing vertical fractures, enabling the establishment of gas wells that consistently produce higher yields.

Coupled with horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing is utilized to access the trapped natural gas through the introduction of high-pressure water or other liquids/gels into the formation to increase the number of fractures within the rock, accessing even more gas. Though the techniques are new to the Marcellus Shale, and the resource being retrieved is both economically helpful and environmentally safe, concerns have arisen regarding impacts upon our environment, cultural resources and public health due to drilling and the use of substantial amounts of non-allocated water via the hydraulic fracturing process. These concerns and activities are currently being addressed through permitting processes instituted to regulate harmful activity within the 600-mile expanse of the Marcellus Shale region.

The Marcellus Shale formation is estimated to contain enough natural gas to increase national reserves by twenty percent. Retrieving the gas is a daunting undertaking, but GAI can help. As one of the leading natural gas siting and permitting consulting firms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York, GAI is conveniently located in Pittsburgh, PA, Philadelphia, PA, and Charleston, WV. GAI has years of experience in the natural gas industry, providing comprehensive cultural resources, civil engineering, surveying and environmental solutions. As a full-service engineering and environmental consulting firm, we have the unique ability to see the big picture, and the staff with which to realize it.

For more information regarding our expertise in the natural gas industry, please refer to the indexes on the right side of this page, click on the images below or follow the link to read about our solutions in Energy Engineering and Consulting…