By Kensie Hamilton
Natural gas fracing has been around since the 1940s and has a long history in the Mountain State. Through the major advances made in the past decade, this process has been combined with horizontal drilling techniques to increase productivity and decrease impact on the landscape.
It is said a picture is worth a thousand words, and this story features 11. In response to the many questions and misinformation circulating not only about how a natural gas well is drilled but also about the steps taken to ensure it is drilled safely, Chesapeake Energy has designed a step-by-step video to help people better understand the methods and technologies used to capture natural gas. This video helps lay to rest the fears produced by that misinformation and features an explanation as to how modern horizontal drilling is used to capture the same amount of gas as 32 traditional vertical wells with much less impact on the surface.
The images featured in this story are still images taken from the drilling video. You can find the full video at Chesapeake’s Web site in the animations section at www.chk.com/Media/Educational-Library.
