Industry video on horizontal drilling in Marcellus Shale

Our web site has a slide show explaining how vertical oil and gas wells are drilled that shows what can go wrong.  We recommend viewing that first.  After that we can point you to an industry video that shows how horizontal wells are drilled.

Recently Marcellus Shale gas wells are being drilled horizontally.  A Pennsylvania gas industry web site has an excellent "Drilling Process Video" (on the right side; scroll down a little) on how horizontal fracing is done.  There are some differences between what is stated on the video about Pennsylvania and here.  In West Virginia the driller does not have to get a permit to withdraw water to use in fracing as is needed in Pennsylvania.  Also in West Virginia, particularly southern West Virginia, gas pressures are lower.  So instead of using water to frac the wells, liquid nitrogen is used -- which may be better.  The industry video leaves off the details of what can go wrong which are contained on this slide show.  Notice at the end how much territory wells and pipelines processing for Marcellus Wells can take.