Hydraulic Fracturing: Just the Fracs
After producing over 174 million barrels of oil from January through September 2012, North Dakota passed Alaska as the second highest oil producing state in the nation, trailing only Texas. The Department of Natural Resources estimates that oil production in the Bakken Formation could top 1.2 million barrels per day by the end of 2014 or early 2015. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Bakken Formation is the largest known oil reserve in the lower 48 states.
What is the Bakken Formation?
The Bakken oil field is part of a formation covering approximately 200,000 square miles in northwest North Dakota, northeast Montana, and Saskatchewan, Canada. In 1995, the U.S.G.S. estimated that the Formation held roughly 151 million barrels of recoverable oil. Since then, drilling technology has improved causing reserve estimates to spike to between 6-24 billion barrels. Much of this new technology consists of a drilling practice called fracking, or hydraulic fracturing.
What is fracking?
Unlike conventional oil deposits, which are typically liquid pools, the oil found at the Bakken Formation is trapped amidst layers of shale rock up to two miles below the surface. In order for rock to yield economically produceable oil, it must have two qualities: porosity and permeability. Unfortunately, shale is not permeable, meaning oil and gas cannot easily flow through the rock.
According to Dr. Richard Lahti, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Physics at Minnesota State University Moorhead, fracking involves pushing a fracturing fluid down a well at high pressure in order to break up the rock layers that hold the natural gas or, in this case, oil. When the fracturing fluid is removed, the oil can flow towards the pipe to be extracted. Unlike conventional vertical wells, fracturing most often occurs in areas that kick off laterally from the original drill site.
Without the use of such fracking methods, much of the oil contained within Bakken Formation would be unavailable for extraction. Oil Geologists have known about the North Dakota’s oil since the 1953, but were unable to access it.
What are the drawbacks to fracking?
According to Dr. Bernhardt Saini-Eidukat, Associate Professor of Geosciences at North Dakota State University, the drawbacks of continued fracking in Western North Dakota include:
The increased cost (compared to conventional vertical oil wells).
The large amount of fresh water required for the process.
Proper disposal of “used” water.
In addition, Dr. Saini-Eidukat states there is “concern by all responsible groups about the possible effects of small amounts of chemicals that are part of the fracking fluid.” Typical fracking fluid is made up of 99.5% water and sand, but even a ratio of 0.5% is significant when used in high volume. In 2012, the Obama Administration issued a proposed rule governing hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas on public lands that will for the first time require disclosure of the chemicals used in the process. The EPA is currently conducting toxicity assessments of over 1,000 chemicals commonly used in fracturing fluid.
Western North Dakota is littered with waste pits from oil wells; pits that contain everything from drilling mud to chemically infused wastewater, known as brine. Although there are regulations governing the disposal of such waste, there is concern among residents regarding the residual affects on the environment, specifically water supplies.
Because North Dakota’s oil deposits are so deep, there is less danger than in other states the fracking will contaminate drinking water. Of course, there are always risks. The EPA is currently studying the potential impact fracking may have in the following areas:
Water Acquisition: Fracking requires a large volume of water, which has the potential to limit water supplies.
Fracking Fluid Spills: The chemicals used in fracking fluid would negatively impact the environment if spilled.
Well Injection: The injection of fracking fluid into the ground and the potential for the fluid to migrate into drinking water in a concern.
Flowback/Produced Water: Fracking not only uses large volumes of water, it also unlocks large volumes of water from deep formations that flow to the surface; water that is often highly saline.
Wastewater Treatment and Disposal: The water used in the fracking process must be properly treated antd disposed of in order to avoid harmful consequences.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in more than a million wells that have been fracked in the past sixty years, there has never been an instance of drinking water contamination.
“Hopefully as the industry matures,” says Dr. Lahti, “it will be well regulated and the operators will recycle their fluid and dispose of waste properly.”