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Sample gas drilling rig.

Click the document below to see a presentation that was made by the Fort Worth League of Neighborhood Associations, which represents community watch groups, neighborhood beautification groups, and historical district groups in Fort Worth (not mandatory HOAs).  The FWLNAs works very closely with the City of Fort Worth Office of Neighborhood Services.   I’ve been to their events; they are a solid, legitimate organization working to educate homeowners in Fort Worth.

Gas Drilling 101 (Adobe PDF file)
 

  
 
We are your neighbors, not a gas lease company.

Why has drilling started recently in the Barnett Shale

Contrary to popular belief, urban drilling is not new and has occurred at various places throughout the United States. However, the concentrated number of gas wells being drilled in a large metropolitan area, like around Fort Worth and surrounding cities, has created more awareness about urban drilling. The high activity levels of urban drilling in North Texas are a direct result of three things:

  • The Barnett Shale may be the largest and most active natural gas reserve field in the United States, making it an integral part of America’s energy sources.
  • The most populated areas of North Texas happen to sit atop the Barnett Shale.
  • Advances in drilling techniques enable producers to extract this gas efficiently and economically.

Mitchell Energy drilled the first gas well in the Barnett Shale in 1981. After studying the Barnett Shale, the company could see its potential, but knew drilling would be difficult because the natural gas was literally hiding in the source rock layers. The industry calls this kind of deposit “unconventional” (also known as “nonconventional”) because the gas is not located in relatively shallow, highly porous rock formations which create pockets of gas (known as “conventional” deposits). Conventional deposit formations are much easier to produce.

In the Barnett Shale, the source rock has to be fractured to release the gas, a technique that at the time wasn’t netting the company with large enough gas reserves to be truly profitable.

For the next 20 years, Mitchell Energy continued to work at inventing the technology to unlock the key to the Barnett Shale. By the late 1990s, Mitchell Energy increased the economic efficiency of Barnett Shale gas wells by using hydraulic fracturing methods, which is the use of water and sand under high pressure, to fracture the rock and release the gas. Since Mitchell Energy’s pioneering efforts, many gas companies have continued to develop methods and technologies to improve production. The final piece of the puzzle was the introduction of horizontal drilling in 2002.

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